The Will of All Others
by BloodyFlickingAndSwishing
Summary: One conversation changes the course of the Wizarding World. Lord Voldemort decides he no longer wants to kill Harry Potter. No, Voldemort has other plans for the Boy-Who-Lived. This is a story where Harry must fight Voldemort from within, as a Dark Soldier. This is an Alternate Universe starting in Harry's Fourth Year.
1. Prologue: An Objective Observation

**Prologue: An Objective Observation**

* * *

Lord Voldemort stood silhouetted by the window, gazing out at the dark forest below, and the thick clouds above. The torches around the room did not chase away the darkness that the Dark Lord manifested. Vagnof approached slowly and respectfully, with his hands clasped behind his back.

"My Lord," Vagnof said. "I believe you wish to speak with me."

Lord Voldemort turned his head, revealing two gleaming red eyes framed by a reptilian face. A smile played on his lipless mouth.

"Vagnof, I trust you are settling in?"

"London is a quite the change of scenery compared to my home in Ranchi, My Lord."

"It is a new beginning for the both of us," Lord Voldemort said reverently. "I am thankful for your astute presence. Salazar knows I have need of every wizard I can get. How is your progress with the wards?"

"Slow, My Lord," Vagnof said cautiously. "These wards are ancient and have not weakened over time. Breaking through them will require a great amount of collective power."

"That does not worry me. When will you be ready?"

"I should have an appropriate chant within a month."

"You have two weeks."

Vagnof nodded and bowed. He ventured, "If I may, Mr Lord, for what reason are we forcefully breaking into this school of wizardry?"

Lord Voldemort's eyes narrowed into slits. He turned back to the window with his hands curled into loose fists.

"I have some unfinished business there to attend to. My two most dangerous enemies inhabit that school."

"Ah yes, I have been told of Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter. Your Death Eaters speak their names with much disdain. However, I am perplexed by this 'Harry Potter', he seems to be nothing more than a boy."

"That _boy,_ " Lord Voldemort hissed. "Is prophesied to be my downfall."

"A prophecy?"

"It was told before the boy was even born, and he has been a foil to my rise of power ever since."

"He must have an incredible amount of power."

Lord Voldemort scoffed, "His father was a Pureblood, but his mother was a Mudblood. His magical power is half as potent as it could have been." Vagnof remained in thoughtful silence, causing Lord Voldemort to turn to him in accusation. "Speak your mind, Vagnof."

"My apologies, My Lord, but I fail to see how a mere boy with so little magical power can truly be of much threat to you - the most powerful wizard I have ever met."

"You have much to learn, Vagnof. He cannot be allowed to live for he is the one _prophesied_ to destroy me."

"But what you speak of is merely a prophecy."

" _Merely_ a prophecy? Prophecies are extremely dangerous if left unheeded. It foretells a future event which I cannot allow to occur."

"In my country, we do not believe in fate," Vagnof explained. "We believe in the basic free will of each and every living thing. Thus, prophecies often go unheeded. Consequently, many of them do not come to fruition. You see, merely the suggestion of a prophecy is oftentimes enough for it to come true by the very hand of those who heard it."

"What are you saying, Vagnof? That I should just simply disregard the prophecy completely and allow the boy to live?"

"Yes," Vagnof said. "The more significance you place on it, the more likely it is to come true."

Lord Voldemort lapsed into thoughtful silence. He turned back to the window and remained for so long that Vagnof wondered if he had been wordlessly dismissed.

"You have provided me with a very unique insight, Vagnof," Lord Voldemort said finally. "You are to continue your work on the wards around Hogwarts. Your intuition has given me new plans for Hogwarts."

In the darkness, Vagnof could see a grin return to the Dark Lord's face, and shivered. He bowed again and turned away from the Dark Lord. He wondered privately to himself what Lord Voldemort could possibly have planned, if he no longer desired to kill Harry Potter.

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 **That's the prologue! I'll have the first chapter up really soon.**

 **Thought I should mention: Thoughts of suicide will come up at some point in this fic. I didn't want to mention it in the summary because I didn't want people to think that it's a main concern of this fic - it's not. There will definitely not be scene where a character commits suicide, and there will not be vicarious mentions of a character who commits suicide. I know that this is a sensitive subject, so I just thought I should write a little note.**

 **Also, the plot (and Vagnof) are of my creation, everything else belongs to J K Rowling.**


	2. The Fall of Hogwarts

**Chapter 1: The Fall of Hogwarts**

The Fall of Hogwarts began with a crackling, sizzling sound like oil to a hot pan. It echoed around the school, seeping into every crevice and corner. It woke the boys in the Fifth-Year dormitory, and when they opened their eyes, they found a dazzling display of lights that illuminated the room and cast warped and contorted shadows on the walls.

Harry sat bolt upright in bed. His scar throbbed. He fumbled to find his glasses and ran to the window.

"What the hell?" Ron exclaimed beside him, staring with wide eyes at the sky.

The sky was falling. Bolts of light splintered the heavens into a dome-like shape over Hogwarts, and caused glittering shards to break loose and fall to the ground. Harry followed the bolts of light downward to where they originated. On the other side of the dome, hundreds of masked figures stood with their wands raised, chanting an incantation.

"The wards," Harry said. "They're breaking through the wards. Death Eaters are breaking into Hogwarts."

The boys ran together from the room and entered into the chaos that was the Gryffindor Common Room. Students were running and screaming back and forth, panic-stricken with no idea what to do. The Head Boy Carl Hopkins stood in front of the entrance with his wand pressed to his neck.

"EVERYONE NEEDS TO STAY CALM," Hopkins' amplified voice rose above the panicked chatter of the students. Harry, Ron, and Neville fought through the crowd to the entrance.

"Let us out, Hopkins," Ron said.

"YOU'RE NOT-" Hopkins began, then removed the wand from his neck. "You three aren't going anywhere. The school is on lockdown until the teachers sort this out."

"You want us to just sit here and do nothing while Death Eaters break into our school?" Ron demanded.

"Yes," Hopkins said distractedly. He clambered onto an armchair and again tried to get the attention of the frightened students. A loud crash accompanied by a blinding flash of light suddenly shook the castle, and was met with screams.

"The wards have fallen!" Fred yelled from the window. Harry forced his way to Fred's side and peered down. The Death Eaters were flowing into the school grounds through gaps in the wards. At the base of the castle, the teachers had gathered and were advancing to meet them. They were led by an army of silver soldiers Harry recognised as the suits of armour.

"The teachers are fighting!" Harry yelled. "We need to help them!"

Cheers of affirmation rose from the older students. They turned to Hopkins, who still stood guarding the entrance.

"The entrance has been sealed," Hermione said, examining the closed entrance.

"Are you a Gryffindor or not?" George said. "The teachers are outnumbered. They need us."

"That doesn't change the fact that now only a teacher can open this entrance. We're stuck," Hermione said.

Hopkins butted in, "And I'm sure the Aurors have been notified-"

"Out of the way, Hopkins," George said, shoving him aside and examining the entrance. The hole simply didn't appear to exist anymore. "Aberto! Dissendium! Cistem Aperio!"

"It's not going to work," Hopkins sang in a droll, sing-song voice. "Only the teachers can open it now."

"So we really are stuck here," Ron said. "Nice going, Hopkins."

Harry turned back to the window. The teachers were putting up a real fight. Professor Dumbledore was holding his own against a swarm of Death Eaters. Professor McGonagall was manipulating the suits of armour like an army of puppets. Even Professor Flitwick had the Death Eaters jumping around doing the macarena and making farm-animal noises. But their efforts went in vain. For every Death Eater they defeated, ten arose to take their place. Harry could see some of them running past the teachers and entering the castle.

Professor Dumbledore saw this, and paused his battle to cast a spell over the school's entrance. His lapse in concentration was all the Death Eaters needed, however, and Professor Dumbledore was struck down.

"NO!" Harry yelled, and pounded on the window. "We have to get down there!" He stood back and raised his wand to the window.

"Reducto!" Harry yelled. The spell blasted into the window but the glass remained intact.

"Harry Potter!"

The Gryffindor Common Room descended into complete silence within the space of a second. Everyone turned in unison to the entrance, where Severus Snape stood glaring at Harry. Harry raised his wand, and the Gryffindors did the same.

"You've got some nerve coming up here while all your Death Eater friends are invading the school," Harry said.

"You need to leave, Potter," Snape replied slowly, raising his hands.

"How did you get through the entrance?" Ron said.

"I'm a teacher," Snape said dryly.

"A _Slytherin_ teacher," Ron returned.

"It would be terribly inefficient if only the Heads of Houses could open their corresponding Dormitories," Snape snapped. "Potter, if you don't come with me now, you will die."

"And what about everyone else?" Harry demanded.

" _Everyone else_ doesn't have the number one position on the Dark Lord's To-Kill List," Snape growled. "Now are you really just going to sit here until someone comes along and gives you your death? Come along, before-"

"Avada kedavra!"

Snape's sneer froze on his face. His grey eyes, previously fixed on Harry's, took on a faraway glaze, and he slowly tipped forwards and slumped awkwardly over the entrance. Harry blinked, unable to grasp what had just happened. A masked figure appeared in the entrance.

"Hey! I found the-" the Death Eater yelled, but was cut off when the Gryffindors collectively charged through the entrance, clambering over Snape's body to battle with the enemy. Harry remained rooted to the spot.

"Harry, come on!" Hermione yelled.

Harry tore his eyes away from Snape. "They killed him," he said. "Why did they kill him? He's on their side!"

"Who cares? Come on!" Ron gripped Harry's arm and pulled him to the entrance.

Spells flew left and right. The trio ran down the hall, narrowly missing several erroneous curses, where they found Ginny duelling a masked Death Eater.

"Protego!" Ron shouted, blasting the Death Eater into the wall. "Ginny! What are you doing? Get back to the Common Room!"

Ginny put her hands on her hips. " _You_ go back to the Common Room," she said, and ran off. Ron spluttered indignantly and followed after her.

Harry turned to Hermione and found a Death Eater trying sneak up on them. Harry and the Death Eater made silent eye contact for a split second before the Death Eater raised his wand.

"Incendio!"

Harry clutched Hermione and pulled her out of the way of the burst of fire. Harry returned a curse of his own and the Death Eater dropped like a sack of potatoes.

They joined the other Gryffindors and worked their way through the hallways of Hogwarts. It seemed as though every corner they turned revealed new enemies, like an endless video game. At first, they fought in a duo, Harry shielding Hermione while she hurled numerous and creative curses at the Death Eaters. As the amount of Death Eaters began to grow, however, the were forced to split up.

A severing charm sliced Harry across the cheek. A masked Death Eater laughed.

"I gave Potter a second scar!" he snickered.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted. The Death Eater neatly sidestepped the red jet of light.

"Crucio!"

Harry jumped out of the way of the curse's path just in time. The curse came again, and again, and Harry evaded them each time

"Come back here, Potter!" the Death Eater yelled, running after him.

Harry couldn't help crying out when another Death Eater's erroneous spell struck him in the leg, freezing it to the ground.

"Nice one, Rookwood!"

The two Death Eaters high-fived, which Harry found to be terribly inappropriate. They turned to Harry with raised wands.

"Protego!" the shield spilled from Harry's wand in time to block the Death Eaters' curses. He tried to wrench his leg from the ground, but it simply wouldn't move. He removed the Protego in order to cast a _Finite Incantem_ on the leg, but it did nothing.

A second severing charm snapped across his shoulder. He let out a hiss of pain. He sent a flurry of curses at the Death Eaters, but they easily blocked and dodged them. Harry ducked to avoid another severing charm. The Death Eaters were laughing behind the masks, and Harry realised that they were toying with him.

"Stop wasting time," a voice Harry instantly recognised as Lucius Malfoy's said. "Remember the objective."

Harry turned to see the Lucius behind an ornate white mask, with his long silver hair flowing elegantly behind him. Harry raised his wand, but the Dark Wizard was already hurrying down the hall, and Harry was still stuck in place.

The Death Eater's laughter stopped. They raised their wand to Harry and sent a barrage of curses. Harry moved to conjure his shield charm, but he was too slow. Ropes materialised from the Death Eater's wands and wrapped themselves around his chest and arms. He struggled against the tight cords, trying to manoeuvre his wand that was pinned to his side so that he could remove them.

The Death Eaters seized him and dragged him down the hallway. Harry struggled all the way. He yelled and cursed, but nothing stopped them. One of the Death Eaters pressed his wand into Harry's neck, and his entire body seized up as though he were being given an electric shock.

They took him all the way down to the castle's entrance. Harry screamed for help, but the other students was too engrossed in their own battles. They were outside now, and Harry could see other students receiving the same treatment as he was, being pulled and pushed and shoved across the grounds, away from the castle. He saw Ginny duelling with a Death Eater over Ron's bound form. The teachers were nowhere to be seen. There were no Aurors, and no member of the Order of the Phoenix. _Where is everyone?_ Harry thought desperately. Then he saw a form lying on the grass in an awkward position. His light blue robes glittered in the moonlight.

Albus Dumbledore. Dead.

If Harry's jaw hadn't been locked tight from the currents of electricity coursing through him, he would have let out a sob. His eyes followed Professor Dumbledore's immobile form until it was no longer in his line of sight.

"Harry!" Hermione shouted.

She moved to stand in front of Harry and the two Death Eaters who held him captive. Harry's eyes went wide, pleading. She raised her wand. _No._ Harry thought desperately. _Run, save yourself._

"Stupefy!" Hermione yelled. The seizing spell Harry had been under suddenly ended as the Death Eater moved to block the spell.

"Hermione, run!" Harry yelled, still held tight by the ropes.

The Death Eater and Hermione exchanged curses, until an _Everte Stratum_ hit Hermione square in the chest. She went flying backwards with a high-pitched scream and landed with a hard thud. For a second she rolled, and then lay still. She didn't move.

"HERMIONE!" Harry bellowed, struggling with every bit of his strength against the Death Eaters who resumed their plight. They moved quicker, and with more urgency now. They forced Harry through the Hogwarts wards that were still sizzling and crackling with broken magic.

They let go of Harry, and being unable to move a muscle in his body, he toppled over onto his side. He stared helplessly up at Hogwarts. The only home he'd ever known was on fire. Smoke billowed above the castle like a great heavy blanket, and the windows glowed red and orange. Death Eaters and students still ran wild around the castle's perimeter. Harry felt his heart clench. He fought desperately to move, to get up, to fight, but his body did not heed his demands.

One of the Death Eaters forced a coin into Harry's rigid hands. The image of Hogwarts on fire burned at the forefront of his mind as he felt the ground twist away from him, and he was Portkeyed away. He guessed that he wouldn't be alive to see sunrise.

That night came to be known as the Fall of Hogwarts, where 400 students were kidnapped, and 59 teachers and students were murdered. It marked the Ministry's official recognition of Lord Voldemort's return, and sent the Wizarding World itself into a state of panic. No one would find out what happened to those kidnapped students for two years.

* * *

 **Hello, I should probably mention that I'm going to try and stay as close to canon as possible, but there will be a few deviations here and there.**


	3. Straps or Posts?

**Chapter 2: Straps or Posts?**

The Bugle Call jolted Harry from his sleep, and he unwillingly opened his eyes to face his unfortunate reality. He lay on a small cot, in an equally small room, containing only four walls, a window with an inane row of bars, and a doorway, which currently no longer had a glowing blue ward that trapped Harry inside.

Beyond the doorway, he could hear the rustle of other soldiers rising from their beds. Harry stared at the wooden ceiling and did not move. The Bugle Call continued to sound loudly in his ears.

Ron stuck his head into the doorway and gave Harry a sour look.

"Straps or Posts?" he said.

It was enough to get Harry moving. The saying was a familiar one among the soldiers. It was a reference to the two most common forms of punishment they received, and what would happen if you decided not to do as you were told.

He swung his feet off the cot. He instinctively moved his hand to the side table to grab his glasses, but there was neither of the two items. He hadn't needed glasses for two years. He still missed the weight of the them on his nose. Thanks to the miracle that was magic, he now had perfect 20/20 vision. He followed Ron into the thin corridor, where they joined the throng of soldiers.

They filed out of the Barrack and joined the larger mass of soldiers, walking obediently past the five rows of Barracks. They were an army of teenagers clad in black overalls. They passed the communal showers and the toilets, and came to the entrance. The entrance was currently blocked by a semitransparent wall that warped and flickered before them. The misshapen wall made a perfect ring around the five Barracks, sealing them inside.

They milled around the entrance, waiting for it to open. Harry folded his arms across his chest and tried to blink away the sleep from his eyes.

Dean seized Harry's shoulder from behind and spun him around so that they were facing. Dean was sporting a serious bruise around his right eye. He'd also ripped off the sleeves of his overalls, as some soldiers elected to do, revealing the three blood-red runes that had been carved into every soldier's left forearm. Harry kept both of his sleeves firmly attached and pulled down right over his wrists.

"Lo, Scarface," Dean said. "Me and you. The Cage. Tonight."

Harry shook his head. "You've still got a black eye from the last time we went at it."

"I'm prepared this time around," Dean said, then gave Harry a smirk. "I've got lemon juice."

Harry rolled his eyes. Lemon juice had become a running joke similar to the 'Scarface' nickname he'd been given. Since the scar on Harry's forehead was cursed, it was perpetually an open wound. Lemon juice made open wounds sting. Hence, it was said the Harry Potter could be repelled using lemon juice.

The misshapen wall finally parted down the middle, and the soldiers were permitted through, into the rest of the camp. Gaunt Camp was arranged in a large circle, with all of the structures facing inward to the centre, which was a muddy expanse known only as No Man's Land.

To the direct left of the five Barracks, lying beyond the misshapen ward were the warehouses, followed by a neat row of three thick wooden posts that stood like sentries on a slightly raised hill. The Atrium and the Training Rooms lay beside the Posts, followed by a small manor where the Death Eaters and Trainers stayed. The Cafeteria and Kitchens were a part of the same structure. Beyond that was the unused gravel entrance, which also lay directly to the right and on the other side of the Barracks. The camp was surrounded by an impenetrable wall of wards. They knew it was impossible to get through those wards. They had tried.

The soldiers made their way across No Man's Land to the Cafeteria, whose entrance was flanked by two Death Eaters behind masks. The soldiers filed through, and as they passed the Death Eaters, the each slapped the back of their hands against their forehead in a mocking salute. The Death Eaters did not acknowledge their antics.

They each received a bowl of a substance that could only be described as 'gruel' and took their seats at one of the long tables reminiscent of those that were in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. All the while, they were stared down by silent and elusive, mask-clad Death Eaters.

Harry sat with Neville and Ron on either side, sitting across from Seamus and Dean, but they were missing a soldier.

"Where's Mason?" Harry asked.

"Post," Neville replied without elaboration. There was no need for one. Harry sighed. That meant Mason was still talking back to the Trainers and getting punished for it. Smart-arses were not welcome at Gaunt Camp, and Mason was the biggest Smart-arse of them all. He spent half of his time chained to one of those three Posts outside.

"Bloody Rooks," Ron said.

"Yeah, the kid's on his way to becoming another Colin," Neville said.

Harry elbowed him sharply, causing his right sleeve to pull up and reveal the thick black shackle around Harry's wrist. "Don't say his name," Harry growled, quickly pulling his sleeve back down.

The group descended into uncomfortable silence. Harry stared down at his bowl of gruel. Though he didn't know it, this was his 685th day at Gaunt Camp. That was 685 days of forced training to be a Dark Soldier for Lord Voldemort's army. 685 days of slaving for Lord Voldemort.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

After breakfast, the soldiers were split into groups according to age for their daily training regimens. Harry and the others made their way to the Atrium where Amycus, their Trainer, was waiting for them. The Atrium was a large, gym-like building whose walls were lined with weapons and suits of armour. Across the other side of the room, five scorched dummies stared them down on the wheeled spigots.

"Right, Soldiers," Amycus said. "We're drilling our Legilimency techniques. Pair up and start cursing."

Harry and Ron paired up as they always did. They hurled curses at each other while simultaneously ducking and weaving to avoid the other's.

"Remember, manipulating your opponent through Legilimency requires subtlety. Under no circumstances should you be speaking your commands out loud."

Harry and Ron locked eyes. Ligilimency required eye-contact. Ron sent a curse and Harry deflected it. He returned his own, which Ron neatly sidestepped.

 _Drop your wand,_ Harry said in his mind, imagining that Ron could hear him as clearly as if he had yelled it in his ear. Ron's hand twitched, but instead of dropping his wand he raised it higher and sent another curse. Harry ducked out of its path. Faintly, he could hear the words _drop your wand!_ in the back of his mind. He ignored it and gripped his wand even tighter.

 _DROP YOUR WAND!_ Harry yelled with such force that Ron's wand clattered to the floor. Ron hastened to retrieve it, but it was already sailing into Harry's open hand. Ron glanced up at Amycus, but their Trainer was occupied reprimanding Neville.

"Damn you," Ron growled.

Harry smirked. "You've got to be more forceful. No one follows orders if they're whispered in your ear."

"Yeah, yeah, give me my wand."

Harry tossed the wand back and they resumed their positions. They raised their wands again, eyes locked. Harry was holding Ron's wand again in a matter of seconds. Ron growled in annoyance.

"Your frustration is not helping matters," Amycus said to Ron. "Again."

So they raised they raised their wands again and continued to duel. When Amycus had finally seemed satisfied with their work and walked away, Ron ceased the duel and came up next to Harry.

"Michael taught me something cool yesterday," Ron said. "Watch this."

He raised his wand and pointed it at Amycus.

"Ron!" Harry hissed. "Don't be an idiot."

Harry reached to point Ron's wand anywhere but directly at the Trainer, but the charm was already sailing across the room. It hit Amycus on the shoulder, and immediately his feet began to move and shuffle in a complicated rhythm.

"What the-" Amycus spluttered, trying to get a hold of himself as the Atrium erupted into sniggers. Amycus swiftly terminated the spell and turned on the soldiers.

"That was quite childish," he said in a venomously quiet voice. "Perpetrator – own up, or everyone will pay for it. _Dearly._ "

Harry caught Ron's eye, but he didn't move.

Harry hissed under his breath, "I am not getting the Straps just for -"

"Got something to say, Scarface?" Amycus snarled, turning to Harry. He walked up close, getting into Harry's personal space. "A confession, perhaps?" Harry remained silent and glared at Amycus. "Maybe I should just punish you anyway. It's always fun to see the Golden Boy writhing on the floor."

Harry opened his mouth, but Ron beat him to it. "It wasn't Harry, Sir," Ron said. Harry breathed a sigh. "It was Seamus. I saw him."

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing. Seamus spluttered with indignation. Amycus turned to Seamus, but Harry's hand shot out and latched onto his arm.

"Go on then," Harry challenged. "You already said you wanted to."

"Sacrificing yourself for Seamus? How noble," Amycus said with a derisive smirk. "Nobility is not a trait we encourage here at Gaunt Camp."

He wrenched his arm free from Harry's grip and strolled over to Seamus. Harry turned and gave Ron a venomous look. Ron refused to look at him. He still refused to look even when Amycus carved a fourth rune into Seamus' skin, causing Seamus' suppressed gasps of pain to fill the Atrium.

They trained for the rest of the day without rest, and when they were finally released, Harry left the Atrium and rounded on Ron.

"What the fuck was that?" Harry hissed, shoving Ron in the chest.

"Hey, take it easy," Ron said with an casual smile. "I saved all our asses from punishment."

"Including yours," Harry accused.

"Including mine," he admitted.

"And what about Seamus?"

"I never liked Seamus," he said matter-of-factly. "He's always looked down on me."

"Well, now he hates you! How could you just let him take a punishment that _you_ deserved?"

Ron shrugged, "It's called self-preservation. You look me in the eye and tell me that none of those other soldiers wouldn't have done the exact same thing."

"I wouldn't've."

"Yeah, and you nearly got your butt Crucioed for it. You may be a selfless git but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to be."

"And how many times have I been a selfless git for you?"

"Yeah, a lot, and I'm grateful," he said uncomfortably. "I owe you a lot. But I don't owe them anything," he said, and stalked off.

Harry stared after him. Harry couldn't understand how not just Ron, but all the soldiers could just sell each other out like that. Harry had been called out countless times for being a 'selfless git' by the soldiers, but Harry just couldn't help it. It was instinct. It was like he was the only one doing more than the bare minimum that it took to survive in this hell hole.

Neville came up beside him as he brooded over Ron's shrinking figure.

"I'd try not to worry about him," Neville said. "He's just angry at the world."

"Aren't we all?" Harry muttered. Sometimes it made him so furious that he wanted to scream. Here he was, forced to take orders from Death Eaters, because of the man who'd killed his parents.

"Have you heard the rumours?" Neville asked. Harry turned to him quizzically. "I've heard that we're training to go to war."

"We've always been training to go to war," Harry said. That was one of the first things they'd been told when they arrived at Gaunt Camp. That, and that they were helpless to escape it.

"No, I mean, soon," Neville said.

Harry frowned. The idea of actually going to battle against the rest of the world under Lord Voldemort's name had always seemed like a faraway concept - that was the only way to cope. Live from one day to the next and try not to think about the bigger picture.

Harry and Neville watched a group of Rooks jog past. Their Trainer was having them run laps of No Man's Land. The ritual of running laps was essentially a rite of passage for the newest soldiers. A boy with yellow hair lagged well behind the rest.

"Better pick up the pace, kid," Neville said. "Straps or Posts?"

The boy turned to them with a blazing look.

"Fuck you, Crack," the boy snarled. "Like it makes a different whether I spend a night on the Post or in the Straps. At least I'm still fighting against them. Unlike _you_ ," he spat at Harry.

Neville and Harry frowned at him as he passed by.

"He clearly hasn't had the Straps yet," Neville said.

Harry subtly pointed his wand at the boy and cast a spell that gave the boy a sudden burst of speed.

"And he won't today, either," Harry said.

Neville shook his head, but didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Harry knew what he would say. He would say that coddling the Rooks was a bad idea. "It'll just give them more nerve to try something even more rash, resulting in a harsher punishment than if you had just let them take the fall the first time.' Harry agreed in theory, but again, Harry couldn't help it. It was instinct.

'Rook' was the term the soldiers used for the newest members of the camp. The ones who had only been here for a year or so.

There had been two anniversaries of the Fall of Hogwarts, and on that day, every child who would have started their first year at Hogwarts was instead magically transported to Gaunt Camp to begin their training. No one understood how Voldemort had pulled of such a difficult and complicated spell.

The Rooks were always easy to spot. Their emotions were always more potent than the older soldiers. The Rooks called them Cracks, because they had submitted to the life of a slave soldier.

Harry was seventeen, and he was in the oldest age group at Gaunt Camp. There wasn't a single student from a year above Harry's. They'd puzzled over this. Why wouldn't Voldemort want older wizards who would already be more skilled in magic? The answer they came up with was similar: because they were already more skilled in magic. The Death Eaters would find it more difficult to control them, and their knowledge.

They received their second bowl of gruel at the end of the day, and while they sat Seamus came up and swept Ron's bowl onto the floor where it smashed into pieces.

"What the fuck?" Ron started angrily.

Seamus lifted his left forearm to show the four runes carved into his skin.

"Because of you, I can't eat for two days."

"Good," Ron said. "It'll do wonders for your figure. You were getting a bit chunky."

Seamus punched Ron in the jaw. It was so quick that for a second Harry wondered if it had happened at all. Ron clutched the side of his face and stood to confront Seamus, but he was already stalking away. Ron sat back down and turned to Harry.

"Well, where were you that time, Mr. I'll-Save-Everyone?"

"You deserved it," Harry snapped without looking up from his bowl.

The runes were what ensured that the soldiers were bound to this life of servitude forever. There were three that would always remain on the soldier's forearms. The first was the Interconnecting Rune, which connected all the soldiers together, so that if Lord Voldemort cast a Crucio into one rune, it would be felt by each and every soldier simultaneously.

The second was the Locating Rune, so that Lord Voldemort could instantly find a soldier's location at any moment in time.

The third was the Summoning Rune, when it burnt hot, a soldier had ten seconds to prepare themselves before they were forcefully summoned to the Dark Lord's side.

There were three other runes that were used as punishments, and could be taken on and off at will. One inhibited your ability to eat, one inhibited your ability to talk, and one inhibited your ability to sleep. The soldiers had long debates over which one was the worst.

After supper, they were herded back behind the misshapen wards. Here, they would be left to their own devices until morning, where they would rise to the Bugle Call and repeat it all again.

* * *

 **Should probably put out a warning that the next couple of chapters will be a little dark. Just a little bit.**


	4. Rattle Those Shackles

**Chapter 3: Rattle Those Shackles**

Harry, Neville, and Ron sat leaning against one of the Barracks, watching the colours bleed from the sky, as the sun slowly dipped behind the trees on the horizon. The camp appeared to be completely surrounded by a thick forest. A group of soldiers sat a yard away. Some of them were chanting the Soldier's Song they'd thought up:

Tear off your sleeves,

Rattle those shackles,

Swallow your gruel,

Exchange blows in the Cage,

We're Dark Soldiers,

Until the final price.

Hide in the showers,

Eyes on the floor,

Don't stare too long,

At Potter's backside.

We're the Dark Soldiers

We fight without cause.

"I don't think I can face going into battle against my own family," Ron said. "I just keep imagining their faces when they realize it's me."

Harry imagined exchanging curses with Sirius. Or Hermione.

"What makes you think they're even alive?" Neville said. Harry elbowed him.

"They're alive," Ron snapped. He twisted a twig in his hands and stared hard into the distance.

"Maybe they've fled the country. Maybe they think we're dead," Harry suggested.

Ron was silent, and Neville clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey," Neville said. "I'd say thinking us dead is better than knowing what we've really become."

"Traitors," Ron muttered.

"Soldiers," Neville replied.

"Murderers," Harry said.

Dean found the trio and kicked Harry's foot.

"We've got a date in the Cage," he said.

Harry no longer felt like going head to head with Dean, but nevertheless he got to his feet and followed him around behind the Barracks. This spot was the furthest away from the rest of the Camp and closest to the wards and the thick forest that lay beyond. A crude, cage-like structure had been set up by the soldiers using discarded chicken wire. Two Rooks were inexpertly brawling in its center while others jeered and cheered them on. Seamus saw Dean and Harry approach and broke up the Rooks.

"Alright, play time's over," Seamus said. "The veterans are here."

"You're Harry Potter," one of the Rooks said with wide eyes.

"Yeah, he's Harry – Bloody – Potter," Dean muttered.

"We'll hold him down for you and you can touch his scar," Seamus returned.

"Careful though – they say it's cursed," Dean said, wiggling his fingers mysteriously.

"Yeah, your hair will turn into a bird's nest and you'll gain the undying contempt of Lord Voldemort," Seamus said.

"You're hilarious," Harry said dryly. He and Dean climbed into the cage while the Rooks clambered out. Dean lifted his fists and jumped on the balls of his feet in front of Harry.

"I'm going to beat the shit out of Harry Potter," Dean said. Harry inexplicably remembered the time Dean had painted him a poster with 'Potter for President' written artistically on it back in First Year. How far their friendship had come.

"Well, where's the lemon juice?" Harry asked as they circled and squinted at each other in the falling light. Dean smirked and reached into his overalls to pull out a short chain. He swung it in his hands.

Harry shook his head. "Bare hands only, Dean. Those are the rules," Harry said, cautiously eyeing the chain. The soldiers from beyond the Cage jeered at them.

Dean shrugged, "Just roll up those sleeves of yours and we'll call it even."

The soldiers went silent. Harry's expression darkened. He cocked his head and stared hard at Dean. _Are you really going there?_ But Dean just rose his eyebrows in expectation.

Harry lifted up his left sleeve first, revealing the three red runes on his forearm. Then he lifted his right sleeve, revealing the thick black shackle with three chain links attached to it, and the words _UNTIL THE FINAL PRICE_ carved into its metal surface. He avoided looking at the hateful device. He kept his eyes on Dean and raised his fists, causing the chain links to swing against his forearm.

The memory of the moment he'd gotten that shackle burned at the forefront of his mind.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

It had been 478 days ago. The day after Colin Creevey had been murdered.

"They _killed_ someone," Neville had hissed at them during Training. "We need to watch out, or we'll be next."

"So that's it?" Ron replied angrily. "One kid hits the clackers and we all come falling to our knees in fearful obedience?"

"If you want to be _tortured to death_ then by all means, no one's stopping you."

"No," Harry had said. He was sick of this life. It was time they fought back. Not with petty little deviances, but with real rebellions against the Death Eaters. To show that they will not just lie down and turn into their puppets. "No one's getting tortured. No one's getting killed. No one's falling to their knees. Screw this. We're fighting back. For real."

"What's gotten into you?" Neville said. While Neville was the first to warn them of what would happen to them if they did something wrong, Harry was always the first to agree. But not this time.

" _Colin is dead,_ " Harry hissed. He turned to Amycus. "Everte Stratum!" he yelled, and Amycus when flying backward into a suit of armor. "I will not bow down to my death!"

"Now we're talking!" Ron exclaimed, and the chaos began.

The soldiers ran from room, inspiring the other soldiers into battle. The Death Eaters were caught off guard, and by the time they began to arrive in the dozens, the soldiers had already set fire to several of the Training Rooms, and were running havoc everywhere else.

Harry loved every second of it. He felt alive. It was endlessly satisfying to duel with the Death Eaters – and win. He could feel his entire body thrumming to the rhythm of his magic. He ran. For a moment there, he'd actually had hope. They were winning. They had control over something for the first time in over a year. There was hope. Hope that this didn't have to be his life. Hope that the soldiers were strong enough to fight back. To beat them.

He had just helped to pull down one of the Posts with a crackling thump when his scar flared hot, and everything changed.

The excruciating and all too familiar pain that could only be caused by the Cruciatus Curse ripped into his being. Harry writhed, and tried to stifle the screams that rose within him. His entire body felt as though it was on fire. Across every fiber of his skin were red-hot knives. He screamed. He wanted it to end. He fought to keep a hold of himself. _I'm Harry. I'm Harry. Just Harry. I'm Harry._ He could no longer remember where he was. Why he was in so much pain. _Make it stop! Please make it stop._ He couldn't even remember his name.

The pain fell away, and Harry gasped for breath. Two Death Eaters seized him and pulled him from the ground. He struggled against them, reaching for a wand that was no longer there.

All over the camp, the other soldiers were receiving the same treatment after the Cruciatus Curse had been terminated. Harry had been confused then. Every soldier had felt the spell's effects simultaneously, yet he hadn't heard a single incantation. He hadn't known about the Interconnecting Rune back then. He felt a wand press into his neck, and his body went rigid.

"Fuck – you," Harry bit out at the Death Eaters. They ignored him.

"I swear, this is too much effort for these bastard Mudbloods," one of them had muttered.

They dragged him from the toppled Post to No Man's Land, where the soldiers were forced to kneel in neat rows. This was done in a calm and orderly fashion, while half of the Camp burned around them.

Lord Voldemort stepped in front of them, holding a wand to the runes on his forearm.

"My Soldiers," he said sweetly. "You seem to forget that _I_ ," he pressed down on his forearm, causing a spasm of pain to run through the soldiers. " _Own_ ," a second, more powerful spasm produced a collective gasp from the soldiers. " _You_ ," the soldiers gasped in pain, some doubling over as they knelt on the dirt. "Your magic is not your own. Your skills are not your own. Your decisions are not your own. The rest of the world has forgotten you. You are the worthless children of Mudbloods and Blood Traitors. You should be thanking me for having mercy on your lives.

"You will repair what you have damaged. You will work for 18 hours a day, and receive only one meal. And as for your leader," Lord Voldemort said, turning his eyes on Harry. "He will spend his time in the Dungeons for as long as it takes to restore my Camp back to its former state."

Harry's heart did a kind of skipping beat in his chest, but he fought not to let it show. He allowed himself to be lead away by the two Death Eaters, down to one side of the manor, where a trapdoor led down and down into a large dungeon. Harry blinked to see in the poor light. The walls were made from rough stone and were covered with medieval-looking implements. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it seemed as though every surface was fittingly coated in blood.

His steps faulted despite himself, but the Death Eaters pulled him along regardless, to where the Straps were waiting for him. Two parallel poles where the soldiers were tied using straps so that they stood spread-eagled between them. Harry tried not to think about the last time he'd been in the Straps.

"It was worth it," Harry said as they buckled the straps, trying to feign boldness.

The Death Eaters simply laughed.

"We'll see about that," one had hissed into his ear, making him shiver.

Then they'd left, leaving him alone in the dark. That was when the panic truly begun to set it. He pulled at the straps, but the harder he struggled, the tighter they came. He tried to breathe. He was about to be tortured for an indefinite amount of time because of the uprising he had started.

Why the fuck had he started an uprising? He'd given up. He'd given in. Lord Voldemort had won. He'd figured out that the only way to survive was to accept that. The only way to survive and protect others was to do submit. He knew this. Yet here he was.

The trapdoor slammed open and Harry blinked at the sudden brightness. Harry's scar throbbed as Lord Voldemort descended into the Dungeon, followed by three Death Eaters.

The Dark Lord crossed the threshold between himself and Harry within a second with the look of a snarling wolf on his reptilian face. He closed one hand around Harry's throat and leaned in so close Harry could see the flecked details in Voldemort's red eyes. Harry strained back against the straps, glaring up at the Dark Lord.

"You are mine, Harry Potter, until the final price of death takes you away from me. You are mine. The sooner you learn that, the easier your life will become."

Harry could feel Voldemort's anger echoed inside him like a living thing. He took Voldemort's anger. He made it his own.

"You killed my parents," the words spilled from Harry's mouth. "You killed Dumbledore. You killed Merlin-knows how many innocent students at Hogwarts. I may do what you tell me to because I am forced to, but know that I will take _every opportunity_ I can get to fight back."

Voldemort's grip on Harry's throat tightened. "It's only a matter of time, Potter. You'll realize there's no fighting me. It will only bring you more pain. One day, you will realize what a childish thing you did today."

"You – murdered – one of – _us_ ," Harry choked out.

"Your lives a privilege. That boy had his privilege revoked."

Harry thrashed against Voldemort's grip and snarled, "You don't get to choose who-"

Harry never got to finish his sentence. The bolts of electricity coursing through his body had locked his jaw shut.

"Yes," Voldemort said venomously, his wand digging deep into Harry's gut. "I do." He removed the curse and released his hold around Harry's throat. Harry tried to regain his breath. He turned to the Death Eaters. "Don't kill him," was all he said, before making his leave.

The following five days would haunt Harry for the rest of his life. Five days felt like an eternity. An eternity of pain and blood and screams. He lost all sense of time, all sense of self. All that existed in the universe was this room, the only sensation that existed was pain. Death Eater masks swam in and out of his vision. He tried to suppress his cries, but soon they came out of him compulsively. And with the screams, came the pleads. _Please. No. I've had enough. Please don't. Stop it. STOP IT. I'll kill you. Please. Kill me. I'll do what you want. Make it end. Make it end. Make it end._ If the Death Eaters heard him, he was only met with derisive laughter.

He started to hear a voice in his head that wasn't his own. It was a girl's. _You're stronger than this._ It was Hermione. Over and over again. _Hold on. Please hold on_. _You're stronger than this._

So, Harry gritted his teeth, locked his jaw, and desperately held on to the sound of Hermione's voice ringing in his ears.

And finally, he found himself standing in the too-bright entrance of the Cafeteria, flanked by two Death Eaters. The torso section of his overalls was around his waist. Every soldier was staring wide-eyed at him. His skin was the color of rotten fruit. The Death Eaters were putting him on show.

The Death Eaters nudged him, and he blearily and stonily walked forward, clutching a bowl of gruel and trying not to limp. His body argued at every step. He could feel the soldiers' eyes burning into him. He slowly sat down in his usual spot which had been pelf empty. Ron, Neville, Dean, Seamus, and Mason kept their eyes firmly on their bowls of gruel.

That changed when Harry reached for his spoon, and every pair of eyes, including Harry's, snapped to the black metal shackle with three chain links still around his wrist, with the words _UNTIL THE FINAL PRICE_ etched into its shiny surface.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Again, Harry felt the pain and desperation of that experience. He'd tried to remove it, of course, but every attempt to remove it caused it to burn hotter and hotter. So instead he hid it. Even on sweltering days where they were put hard to work, Harry kept his sleeves firmly down over his forearms.

He circled Dean, feeling the weight of the shackle around his wrist. He felt impossibly bare with his arms rolled up like this, feeling the soldiers' gazes.

Dean advanced, and Harry let Dean punch him quickly in the jaw and in the gut before retreating. That was Dean's style. Quick in, quick out. Harry stumbled backward and felt the pain blossom. He welcomed it. He focused on it. He remembered Hermione's voice.

Harry advanced on Dean, for a moment forgetting everything he'd learned about barehanded fighting. All he saw was someone to take out his frustrations on. Dean swung the chain. It wrapped around Harry's arm. Harry ignored the pain and pulled is arm backwards sharply, sending Dean crashing onto the ground. He kicked him.

 _Dean doesn't deserve this_ , he heard Hermione's voice in the back of his head. Harry agreed. He kicked Dean again when he tried to get up, harder. _Dean doesn't deserve this._ Harry didn't care. Being a Dark Soldier was stressful. If you kept that stress bottled up, you'd go insane. That's what the Cage was for. Release.

He beat Dean into a bloody pulp.

* * *

 **Getting darker. Not sure when the next chapter will be up, hopefully soon. I'm going to focus on some other characters now, seeing as Harry's been stealing most of the limelight.**


	5. Know Your Enemy

**Chapter 5: Know Your Enemy**

The next morning began as it always did, though Harry's arm and shoulder ached from where Dean's weapon had made contact.

Everything was as usual right up until the end of breakfast, when Harry's scar suddenly flared hot. Lord Voldemort stood in the entrance of the Cafeteria and spread his arms wide as the soldiers glanced up from their bowls.

"Today," Lord Voldemort said reverently. "We go to war."

The soldiers stared at each other in harrowed silence.

Out in No Man's Land, they stripped off their overalls in exchange for heavy black battle robes. They were also given identical black masks. Harry stared his. There were no eye slits or nose holes. He put it over his face, and found that he could still breathe and had perfect vision. He took it back off.

"No one will know who we are," Neville said, examining his own mask.

"Makes it easier for them to kill us," Ron muttered.

"Makes it easier for us to kill them," Harry corrected.

He could feel the uneasiness settling in his gut. He might have to fight Sirius today. Or Remus. Or Hermione.

He tried to take a steady breath.

"Listen up, Soldiers," Rabastan Lestrange shouted. He was dressed in similar battle clothing, and held his elaborate Death Eater's mask under his arm. "We're attacking the Ministry. When you get in there, you fight to kill, and you do not stop until the Dark Mark hangs in the sky. You know what is expected of you. Don't even think about trying anything funny – remember those runes."

They were each handed a portkey. Harry and Ron shared one last apprehensive look before pulling their masks over their faces. He felt the pull of the portkey, and ground tilted away from him.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Hermione had initially loved having straight blonde hair. It was much easier to manage, and she thought it suited her new narrow face nicely. However, as the months wore on, she began to miss her bushy curls. They had been her last connection to the parents she had sent packing to Australia, without the faintest clue that they had a daughter.

She reminded herself, once again, that she'd made the right choice. It was for their own good. Just like changing her hair and her face was for her own good. She couldn't go traipsing around Diagon Alley with the face of a Mudblood.

She glanced over her shoulder. Apart from a young couple walking in the opposite direction, the Muggle street was empty. She glanced up at Grimmauld Place. The Ancestral Home of Black. It was a safe house currently used as Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix.

She entered the home as quietly as she could, cautious of Walburga Black's portrait. She climbed up the first flight of stairs, where Ginny appeared at the top of the second. Her red hair had been cropped short so that it brushed against her ears.

"What do you think?" she said, striking a provocative pose and running a hand over her head.

Hermione smiled. "You look like a 20's fem fatale. Was that really necessary?"

"Yes," she insisted. "This way I can fit a Muggle wig on. A simple _Revelio_ charm will reveal most of our disguises - such as your lovely blonde hair, - but it won't reveal the simple fact that I'm wearing plastic hair and covered in a bucket-load of make-up."

"Seems a bit excessive to me."

"Desperate times, Hermione, desperate times," she said while examining herself in a hand-held mirror.

Hermione glanced around at the empty house. "Where is everyone?"

Ginny's expression turned sour. "Out."

Hermione sighed. That meant the members of the Order of the Phoenix were out recruiting. After the Fall of Hogwarts, the Ministry had been forced to admit that Lord Voldemort was back, and release an official apology for the defamation of Harry Potter's reputation. Too bad he wasn't around to accept it. They made promise after promise that they were going to find the kidnapped children, but after two years, people had lost faith.

The Order of the Phoenix offered an alternative to the Ministry's sugar-coated lies. They were a group that actively searched for and hunted down Death Eaters with the sole purpose of finding the children, and finding a way to end the curse over Britain that caused eleven-year-old children to disappear right before their parents' eyes. The Order was nowadays primarily composed of parents who were desperate to get their children back, or to save them from being taken.

Ginny was sixteen and insistent that she was ready to help out with the Order. However, having five protective older brothers who'd already lost one sibling made this prospect difficult. Hermione knew that she got frustrated with always being stuck either in Grimmauld Place or the Burrow.

"Ginny," Hermione said sympathetically. "They just don't want to lose another-"

"Spare me," Ginny said, and stalked off.

Hermione heard someone Flooing in downstairs, followed by hurried footsteps.

"ATTACK!" Sirius' voice bellowed. "ATTACK ON THE MINISTRY!"

"MUDBLOODS! BLOOD TRAITORS! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Walburga's portrait shrieked.

"SHUT UP YOU CRAZY OLD HAG!" Sirius returned.

Hermione leaned over the railing.

"Sirius! What's going on?" she shouted down.

Sirius appeared at the bottom of the staircase and peered up. "Hermione! There's an attack on the Ministry. Who else is here?"

"Just me!" Ginny shouted from two landings above.

Sirius blinked. "Okay. Both of you _stay here_."

Sirius disappeared, and the sound of the Floo flared a minute later.

"Screw that," Ginny said, thumping down the stairs and brushing past Hermione.

"Ginny – no, it's dangerous!" Hermione said, and hurried to follow her down.

Ginny grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and gave Hermione a reckless grin before throwing it into the fireplace and disappearing in a burst of green flames. Hermione cursed under her breath and grabbed herself a handful of Floo Powder.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Sirius arrived in the Ministry Atrium to chaos. Ministry Aurors and most of the Order members were already there. They were fighting Death Eaters who were clad completely in black. Sirius jumped headlong into the fray. It had been so long since he'd had a good duel. The Death Eaters were good. Something about them unnerved Sirius. They did not fight while jeering and taunting like the arrogant Death Eaters Sirius was used to. These Death Eaters fought quietly and consistently. As though their lives depended on this duel. The other thing was their height. Most of them were midgets.

A curse skimmed over his shoulder. Sirius spun around and returned a curse of his own. The Death Eater blocked it easily and raised their wand to retaliate. Sirius braced himself, but nothing came. The Death Eater had frozen. Sirius took advantage of the pause to send a flurry of curses. The soldier blocked them instinctively. He didn't retaliate. Sirius sent curse after curse, advancing slowly forwards. The Death Eater blocked the spells, and nothing more.

"Fight back, Coward!" Sirius exclaimed. He swung his wand upward in a wide arc, causing a gust of wind that blew the Death Eater's mask clean off his face.

Sirius found himself dueling with James Potter. Messy black hair. No glasses. Pale skin. Wide eyes. Terrified expression.

"Harry?" Sirius breathed. His wand dropped to his side. "What – What are you doing here? Why are you…"

Harry shook his head, his mouth opening and closing, unable to form words. Sirius tore his eyes away from Harry and stared at the other soldiers.

Finally, he understood.

"Harry," Sirius said urgently, lifting his palms. "I think I understand. It's okay. We've got you back-"

Sirius was blasted sideways. He was lifted into the air for a moment and then he hit the lacquered floors hard. His head throbbed. The world spun. When he regained his vision, he saw a panic-stricken Harry slide his mask back on and slip into the sea of duelers.

"No!" Sirius yelled, desperately trying to keep track of him through the fighting figures.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Harry's heart was thumping so hard he thought it might explode in his chest. He ducked through the fighters, all the while hearing Sirius' shouts behind him.

"Harry stop! Come back," he yelled. "Stop fighting them! They're not the enemy! Stop!"

Harry ducked into a corner. His breath came in ragged gasps. He saw Sirius' expression again in his mind's eye. He couldn't breathe. His legs stopped working properly. He braced himself against the wall. _He think's you've betrayed him,_ Hermione's voice whispered to him. _He knows you've betrayed them all._

The panic seized him in waves. His heart pounded in his ears. His Godfather knew he had betrayed him, just like Peter. He was just like Peter. Harry shut his eyes tight. _I'm Harry. I'm Harry. I'm just Harry. Just Harry. Just Harry. No choice. No choice. Forgive me…_

His scar flared hot and a bony hand clasped his shoulder. Harry flinched so hard he had to put a hand against the wall and wait for a second for the world to stop spinning. Lord Voldemort's red eyes rotated in his vision.

"There you are. We have work to do," Voldemort said.

Lord Voldemort held tight to Harry's shoulder with one hand and slipped a mask over Harry's face with the other. He then steered him down the corridor he had ducked into. They wound their way this way and that, and as they walked, Harry's heart lessened its palpitations, and he found that he could breathe again.

Harry quickly lost all sense of direction. Every now and then they came across a civilian that Voldemort made quick work of. Finally, they entered an elaborate and ornate office that could only belong to the Minister of Magic.

The Minister himself was frantically talking into the fireplace. With a flick of Voldemort's wand, the face in the embers disappeared. Minister Fudge turned to Voldemort and visibly flinched.

"Hello, Minister," Voldemort said.

" _Minister_?" Fudge said with exaggerated incredulity, nervously fumbling with his wand. "No – no, why, I'm just the cleaning man. Ah yes – Mr. Gunter is my name!"

"Put down the wand, Minister," Voldemort said slowly. "Its presence will hardly change your fate."

"Now, now," he said, raising his wand a fraction higher. "I could just disappear! Poof! I'll never bother you again. I'll do whatever you want! Just let me live. Please, Merlin! I'm not ready to die! I never wanted to be a Minister!"

Voldemort smiled mirthfully. "Nevertheless, the position is yours, thereby making you a threat to the cause."

Voldemort flicked his wand, and the Minister's wand sailed easily into his hand. He turned to Harry and flicked his wand again so that Harry's black mask fell to the floor. Fudge's eyes went wide with recognition.

"Harry Potter!" he exclaimed. "You're Harry Potter!" He bounced on the balls of his feet and stretched both arms out toward him. "There was a prophecy, you know. You're the one! The Saviour! You're the Chosen One! The one who will finally defeat once and for all-"

"Enough," Voldemort hissed. He locked eyes with Harry. "Kill him."

"No!" Fudge cried. "I'll become one of you. I'll do whatever you want! I'll become a Death Eater. I'll serve you for as long as I live!"

"Kill him."

Harry slowly, apprehensively, raised his wand. He could feel his heart beat rising.

"Harry," Fudge pleaded. "You're no Dark Wizard. You're the savior! Whatever he's promised you – whatever he's done to you! Stop! Please, stop!"

" _Kill him,_ " Voldemort hissed. Harry's scar flared hot. Harry flinched and closed his eyes, remembering the last time he's been forced into this position.

He'd stood alone in the center of the Atrium, facing a Muggle man that knelt on the floor in front of him. Ten soldiers stood in a row to his left, each with a Death Eater holding a wand to his neck. Lord Voldemort walked in circles around Harry and the Muggle.

"Kill the Muggle, and you will save your friends," Voldemort said. "Don't kill the Muggle, and I will kill ten of my solders. That's one life for ten. One worthless, Muggle life. You know the incantation. A-va-da ke-da-vra."

Harry had stood with his wand pointed at the Muggle for what felt like hours, as Voldemort circled around him like a hungry shark. Harry's eyes were locked with the Muggle's. Harry couldn't look away. The Muggle had looked tired and resigned. He'd already known what his fate would be.

Harry had glanced at his friends one last time, swallowed hard, and said the words. The curse sailed across the room. The Muggle braced himself. The spell hit him in the chest, but nothing happened. The Muggle continued to live.

"Try again, Potter," Voldemort said, unfazed. "This curse requires hatred. Find your hatred to kill the Muggle, and save your friends. There must be hatred somewhere inside you, Potter. After _everything_ I've done to you."

Harry couldn't help but look up at Voldemort. He stared right into those gleaming red eyes, and he could feel the hatred like a living thing in his gut. Those red eyes with those thin black slits for pupils. That pale green-tinged skin that was the color of a snake. Those purple veins protruding along his scalp. Harry felt the revulsion. At the bones that jutted out from Voldemort's skin. At the nose that was just two slits in Voldemort's face. Harry felt deeply the hatred for this _thing_ that had cursed his life.

He said the words, still staring hard at Voldemort. Voldemort met his gaze, undisturbed that Harry was apparently casting the Killing Curse on him. At the last moment, Harry shifted his gaze and his wand at the Muggle, and the curse found its mark.

The Muggle fell like a sack of potatoes. Slowly at first, before gaining momentum and hitting the floor with an anticlimactic thud. That was that. Voldemort left. The soldiers were released, and there was nothing left except for that hollow feeling in Harry's stomach, and the stale semblance of hatred still sitting in the pit of his gut.

Harry remembered that moment as he stood with his wand pointed at the Minister. What would be the price if he refused? How would Voldemort react. With murder, no doubt. Choose between the Minister, or his friends.

He turned his gaze to Voldemort. He waited for the revulsion to roil in his gut, and for the disgust to turn his stomach. Then he turned to the Minister of Magic and murdered him.

At first, Harry thought the curse hadn't worked, because the Minister continued to stand there, but then his eyes glazed over and took on a far-away look. Slowly, slowly, he tipped backward, where he collided with the fireplace and slid down into an awkward bundle on the floor. Harry had now murdered two people.

"Let's move," Voldemort said immediately after. He moved to the door, but Harry stood rooted to the spot. Fudge had a strange expression on his face. As though he was caught halfway between horror and hysteria. The color was already bleeding from his cheeks. Harry wanted to throw up.

"You hateful wretched bastard!"

Harry was drawn out of his stupor by a sudden commotion in the corridor. By the time Harry got to the doorway, Lord Voldemort had Sirius Black held tight, with his wand dug into Sirius' neck. Sirius struggled furiously against the Dark Lord. His wand lay useless at his feet.

"What a fortunate series of events," Lord Voldemort said with a grin. "The world gets to rid itself of a Blood Traitor and Harry gets to add another one to the tally."

Harry stood dumbly in the doorway.

"Kill him, Harry."

Sirius' eyes went wide, and for a moment he stopped struggling. Harry raised his wand on impulse, realized what he had done, and threw the wand away. Or at least, he tried to. The wand was stuck to his hand.

"No," Harry said unsteadily, trying to shake the wand out of his hand.

"Kill him," Voldemort hissed again.

" _No,_ " Harry said more forcefully. He could feel the panic rising, and with it the bile in his throat. He stepped backward into the office, only to be confronted with Fudge's corpse. He turned back to the pair and shook his head.

"I won't."

Lord Voldemort's expression turned venomous.

"Harry," Sirius choked out. "It's – o-kay."

Harry stared at the Godfather. He was still in the Dark Lord's grip, gazing hungrily at Harry as though the very sight of him was giving him live. He looked sad. Resigned. The same look as the Muggle. He'd given Harry permission to murder him.

Thick black smoke suddenly erupted from Sirius' pocket, engulfing the corridor in inky blackness in a matter of seconds. The darkness was near-complete. Harry stayed where he was amid the ensuing chaos. There was a thud. An incantation. The sound of a spell being cast. Rapid footsteps. Lord Voldemort's growl of anger. The smoke dissipated. There was only Harry and a Dark Lord that was gazing at him with fury in his eyes.

"Mobilicorpus," Voldemort hissed, the spell hit him in the chest and Harry felt himself go weightless. Voldemort swung his wand sideways and Harry slammed bodily into the stone wall. A cry of pain burst from him, and he crumpled to the ground.

"I'll teach you to disobey my orders," Voldemort hissed. Harry groaned. "I let your Blood Traitor friend go this time, but make no mistake. The next time I see him, I'll kill him myself."

He hoisted Harry back to his feet. His body throbbed and ached and protested to any movement Harry made. He could barely move his left arm, and his head was pounding. He felt Voldemort's anger bubbling inside him, but pressed down on it. Now was not the time. Voldemort seized the front of his collar, and shoved him against the wall he'd just been hurled into. Harry glared up at Voldemort through the pain.

"Say it," Voldemort said quietly. Venomously. Harry resentfully looked away. Voldemort held onto him tight, and gave him a tiny shove. " _Say it."_

"M-" Harry tried to say it, but the word burned like acid on his tongue. "Master," he said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. He choked on the words, feeling the bile rise in the back of his throat again. With the word, came the memory.

The Cat bore into him, causing his entire body to convulse forwards and strain against the Straps. He locked his jaw and shut his eyes tight. The Cat came again. Nine long cords tore into his backside. He gasped for breath. Again. His back lurched on contact. It was on fire.

"Just say the word, and the pain will stop," Lord Voldemort said. He knelt in front of Harry so that their faces were just inches apart. Harry tried to keep his face neutral, but he knew that Voldemort could see the pain etched into Harry's face as though it was written on his forehead. The Cat came again. And again.

"Two syllables, Potter. Say it, and we'll put the Cat away."

"No," Harry said breathlessly. He braced himself for the next one. And the next. A guttural, animalistic sound escaped him. The word echoed around his head in Hermione's voice: _master, master, master._

"Ma-" Harry began, but the word turned into a cry of the pain as the Cat came down on his back again.

"Master," Harry finally choked out. Immediately, the straps loosened, and he fell hard onto the stony floor. His entire body was shaking. His backside stung with more pain than he thought was possible without magic. He looked up hatefully, but Lord Voldemort was already gone.

Back in the corridor, Voldemort released Harry's collar and stepped away from him.

"And don't you forget it," he said coldly.

He swept down the corridor, and Harry followed behind, trying hard not to show how much pain being thrown into a wall had caused him, and feeling the familiar bitter hatred at the wizard who walked in front of him.

The Atrium was a sea of celebrating Death Eaters and tired soldiers. The Dark Mark hung above them in the Atrium's high chapelled ceiling. They had won. The Ministry belonged to Lord Voldemort, and by extension, the entirety of Wizarding Britain.

The Atrium was dotted with bloodied bodies. Harry found Ron, Neville, Seamus, and Dean sitting on the ground of the Atrium with their wands cast aside and their masks sitting on top of their heads. They looked exhausted.

"What happened to you?" Ron said to Harry. "You look like you've just come back from the dead.

That's when Harry realized that he was still trembling. He sat down. He rubbed his hands against his arms. He felt impossibly cold.

"Oh, you know… killing Ministers, dueling Godfathers. Just a typical day."

"Yeah," Ron said. "I think I dueled half my family today."

"Did you see Hermione?"

Ron frowned. "No."

"They know now," Harry said. "Everyone knows that we betrayed them."

"We haven't betrayed-" Neville started.

"We just helped Lord Voldemort overthrow the Ministry of Magic." Dean droned.

"But it's not like we had a choice!" Neville said earnestly.

"There's always a choice," Harry said quietly, remembering the wand he had reflexively raised to Sirius.


	6. Straight Lines

**Chapter 6: Straight Lines**

Grimmauld Place had descended into chaos. Every available space was filled with either the wounded or the desolate. The Ministry of Magic has fallen. The Minister was dead. The Dark Mark hung over every magical location in Britain. Lord Voldemort had won.

Hermione helped to heal a man's leg that had several deep gashes. Then she found Ginny being angrily fretted over by her five brothers. Hermione quickly evaded them and stepped into the kitchen, where Sirius sat with his head in his hands.

"Sirius?" Hermione said softly.

"The Death Eaters," he said. His voice sounded far away. "The ones dressed in all black. It was them."

"Who?" Hermione asked.

"The kidnapped kids. Voldemort had us fighting our own children."

Hermione felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach. She had sensed something was wrong when she entered the fight in the Atrium. They hadn't fought with the usual arrogant cockiness of the Death Eaters.

"You mean, Harry and Ron and all the others were right there that whole time?"

Sirius stared up at her. "Harry's alive. I saw him. I blew his mask off and he was _right there_ , but I let him slip away." He slammed his fist against the table. "After all this time," he growled. "We thought they were dead. But they're alive. Voldemort has been forcing them to fight for him."

He stood up suddenly, hands clenched into fists, the look of murder on his face.

"Sirius-"

"I'll kill him," Sirius growled. "I'll kill him."

"Stop it," Hermione said firmly. "Doing something reckless won't save Harry."

"I know," Sirius said. "Harry nearly killed me for it."

"What?"

Sirius explained what had happened. Hermione's expression must have changed a hundred times.

"He killed the Minister?" Hermione said quietly. She simply could not imagine Harry doing such a thing.

"He hesitated a bit, but he still did it."

Hermione frowned. What if they'd changed? What if Voldemort had brainwashed them into following him? What if Harry was a Dark Wizard now? Had he betrayed them? The idea of Harry killing someone was completely foreign to her. Yet Harry had tried to kill Sirius. His own Godfather. Perhaps Voldemort truly had turned them against us. What if they really were the enemy now?

"Do you think he would have killed you?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know," Sirius said honestly. "I just thank Merlin for that Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder the Weasley Twins gave me."

Hermione smiled despite herself. The Twins' franchise was thriving despite these dark times. Every time she went into Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, she was amazed at the ingenuity of the products, and at the jolly feeling that the shop always exhibited in these dark times.

"So, what do we do now?" Hermione asked.

Sirius paused. "We find out how Voldemort is persuading our kids to his side. Then we persuade them back onto ours."

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

The soldiers were taken back to camp and given the rest of the day off so that the Death Eaters could go and celebrate. The younger soldiers who had been deemed too inexperienced to fight gathered around the older soldiers for details.

Locked behind the Barrack wards, Harry itched to use the Cage, but there was a line to use it now. The sun began to fall, and still no Death Eaters came.

"Yeah, I don't think we're being fed tonight," Neville said.

"We do all the hard work, and then they lock us away until we're needed again," Ron scowled.

Two Death Eaters finally approached. They were wearing ornate flowing robes that seemed out of place in the drab camp.

"Finally," Ron said. "Are you going to feed us now?"

"Shut up, Soldier," one of them said. "We're here for Scarface. The day's work isn't over yet."

Harry couldn't help feeling a pang of annoyance. "What, do you want us to overthrow the whole country next? Better yet – the whole planet. Lord Voldemort – ruler of the universe, all in one night's work!"

"That will all come in good time, Potter," the Death Eater said. "Now come along."

They handed him a Portkey, and the world tilted away from him. He landed in a long, thin corridor, standing just outside a stage door. From the other side, he could hear the chatter and glass clinks of what seemed to be a party.

A Death Eater materialized beside him. "Wait here," he said, and went through the door.

Harry stood awkwardly in the corridor. Wherever he had expected them to take him, this was not it.

"Well, if it isn't our favorite Whipping Boy!"

Harry closed his eyes and hoped against hope that Draco Malfoy had not just rounded the corner. He was accompanied by Zabini and Parkinson. They were dressed in emerald robes fit for the party.

"Lo, Malfoy," Harry said tightly.

"Hmm… something's missing," Malfoy said, tapping a finger on his chin. "Shouldn't there be a 'master' in there somewhere?"

Zabini and Parkinson sniggered. Harry rolled his eyes. He leant against the wall and crossed his arms, trying to hide his apprehension around the trio.

The Pureblood children had been spared the slave soldier's life due to their honorable heritage. Lord Voldemort instead create an academy for the privileged students, since Hogwarts was in ruins. Harry didn't know much about what went on in the academy, but he imagined fine silks and tea parties and daily reminders of their superiority.

"Shouldn't you be off enjoying the festivities?" Harry asked.

Zabini sneered. "It's a Celebration Ball. We're bored shitless. We're going to go get hammered," he said with a grin, holding up a bottle of Firewhisky. Harry was struck by their immaturity.

"Yeah, we're going to get away from it all for a bit," Parkinson said. She poked Harry's shoulder. "Want to come?"

Yeah right. "Love to," Harry said, inserting as much sarcasm into the phrase as possible.

"Come on, Pansy. Leave the Snake Whisperer to his Ball," Malfoy said.

" _Fuck you_ ," Harry hissed in Parseltongue.

"Careful," Malfoy said, smirking in his ignorance of what Harry had just said. "Or we'll tell the Dark Lord you were using his secret language."

Lord Voldemort hated the fact that Harry was also a parselmouth.

"Piss off," Harry said in English.

"Suit yourself," Parkinson said, and walked off. Zabini followed.

"Later, Potter," Malfoy said. Then as an afterthought, he said quietly, "There was prophecy in the Department of Mysteries, you know – it's probably long gone by now, but it names you as the only one who can defeat him once and for all."

Harry gave Malfoy a strange look. What was he talking about, and why was Malfoy telling him?

"Very funny," Harry said.

"I'm not joking," Malfoy said seriously. "You're the only one. Father told me."

Well that settles it. If it came from Lucius than it _must_ be true.

Malfoy turned and hurried after the two. Harry remembered Fudge talking about a prophecy, too. Harry had assumed it was just the mad ravings of a man who was desperate not to die. Perhaps there really was a prophecy naming him. Harry stared down at his hands. The black shackle peeked out from under his sleeve. So what if there was a prophecy? There was hardly anything Harry could do about it.

The Death Eater returned and took Harry through the door. He could now hear someone giving a speech. He turned a corner, and could see Lord Voldemort standing out on a stage under a bright light.

"My friends," Lord Voldemort said. "I would like to personally welcome you all to this new era for wizard-kind. Together, we will purge the world of the unworthy."

The Death Eater led him straight out onto the stage that sat in front of a large Ballroom filled with Death Eaters and Purebloods. When Harry stepped out onto the stage, jeers rose up from the crowd.

"Ah, the guest of honor has arrived," Voldemort said. "Wizards and Witches, this boy was prophesied to be my downfall, but today, the Minister or Magic was murdered by his own hand. I present to you, the Boy-Who-Lived – bowing at my feet."

Harry let out a surprised gasp as the Death Eater cast a jinx that made Harry's knees buckle underneath him. The Pureblood onlookers laughed and cheered and stamped their feet. Harry Potter was kneeling in front of Lord Voldemort. Harry's cheeks burned. He could physically feel the anger and humiliation roiling in his gut. He tried to swallow it down.

"Tonight, we celebrate today's victory and the victories that will inevitably follow. With the _Chosen One_ by our side, the Blood Traitors and the Mudbloods will fall, and their children will become our soldiers."

Voldemort turned on his heel and swept off the stage, with Harry forced to his feet to follow behind. Harry was nearly at the curtain when a wizard in the crowd caught his eye. He was short and plump, with a hunched back. His robes were not nearly as ornate as those around him, his face was covered with warts, and had the scrunched-up face of a rat.

"Wormtail," Harry breathed. He stopped dead despite the Death Eater prodding him forward. He was right there, nervously glancing around at the party-goers, oblivious to Harry's hateful gaze. Righteous anger combined itself with resentful humiliation, and Harry was moving on impulse.

He jumped from the stage and shoved his way through the wizards and witches. Their exclamations of surprise were only dimly processed by Harry, who kept his eyes firmly on the rat. Wormtail finally noticed him. His eyes bulged out of his head. He let out a little yelp and began caterwauling and stepping frantically backward, away from the advancing teenager.

"Come back here, you filthy rat!" Harry snarled. He raised his hands instinctively and made a widening gesture. The wizards and witches in his way shifted left and right so that he had a clear path to Wormtail.

Wormtail tripped and fell onto his back. Harry raised his hands. He didn't need to look at Voldemort to find the hatred he needed for this curse. It was already there inside him. It was bursting from him. He'd make this miserable traitor pay.

Lord Voldemort materialized beside him. He was so close that he could feel the heat of Voldemort's breath. Harry tried to ignore the Dark Lord and focus solely on the traitorous rat, but then he caught sight of Voldemort's expression.

He was grinning. His eyes were gleaming as they gazed intently at Harry. Harry was thrown. He had expected anger, fury, indignation. Not this. The Dark Lord's expression disturbed him. _This is what he wants,_ Hermione's voice said. _For you to become a killer._

"Well," Lord Voldemort said smoothly with a serpentine grin. "We're waiting."

Flustered, Harry turned back to Wormtail, who was sniveling on the floor. Harry wanted to. He _wanted_ to, so badly. This man was worthless. He deserved death more than anyone Harry had ever known. But his wand stayed, his lips remained shut. Just like that, he could no longer conjure up the anger and hatred he had felt just moments ago. Peter was pathetic. He lowered his arms, and turned to Lord Voldemort. Voldemort's grin faded.

"Another time, then," Voldemort said. "Apologies for the interruption, my friends."

Voldemort grasped Harry's shoulder and disappirated. They landed back at Gaunt Camp. Harry wrenched himself free from Voldemort's grip and took several steps away. He braced himself for the punishment.

He waited in silence, feeling the beating of his heart and the bile in the back of his throat. He waited, and then realized that the Dark Lord was studying him like a scientist studies his lab rats.

Finally, Voldemort said, "That was some impressive wandless and wordless magic back there. I'll make a Dark Wizard out of you, yet," and disappirated, leaving Harry to shiver in the cold and the dark.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Draco Malfoy sat at the back of the class with Pansy, not even bothering to look as though he was paying attention to Vagnof's lecture.

"Do you want to ditch tomorrow?" Draco said.

"We ditched yesterday," Pansy said with a laugh.

"So?"

"It's too much, Draco. We're already on thin ice for blowing off the Celebration Ball the other night."

Draco looked down. "That ball was lame."

"Everything's lame to you, Draco. You better be careful, or people are going to start thinking you're… you know, an _enemy to the cause_."

"Like I give a shit," Draco snapped.

Pansy didn't respond. Ever since the Fall of the Ministry, Draco had been different. They had been strictly forbidden to enter the Ministry that day, but Draco, Pansy, and Blaise had snuck in anyway, under the pretense that it would be 'fun'.

It was not fun. Well, it was at first. They had laughed at Sirius Black's face when he realized he was dueling Harry Potter. But then the battle continued to rage, and it turned violent. Very violent.

Pansy wasn't that much affected by it. War is a necessary evil. But it seemed to have struck a nerve with Draco. He stopped laughing and watched the battle grimly. His face grew steadily paler.

Pansy had suggested they leave, but Draco had just put on a brave front and tried to laugh it off. Ever since, he had been much less enthusiastic about being a member of the Pureblood elite.

A bell chimed, and they rose from their seats.

"Mr. Malfoy, a word?" Vagnof said before they could shoot out the door. Draco reluctantly turned back as the rest of the class filed out.

"Draco," Vagnof said once they were alone. "I have detected a significant change in your attitude recently. Would you care to explain yourself?"

Draco shrugged and said nothing.

"I am responsible for your education, and by extension, your future as a Pureblood member of our society, Mr. Malfoy. It troubles me to see you take such disinterest in your studies."

Draco remained silent while staring at the floor.

"Does this have anything to do with the Fall of the Ministry?" Vagnof asked. Draco's eyes snapped up. "That day was a victory for the purebloods, but it was, nevertheless, an… intense day. It's perfectly normal to feel an… aversion for violence."

"They were just Mudbloods and Blood Traitors. They deserved their deaths," Draco said, but the words sounded hollow, even to him.

Vagnof pressed his lips together and leant back in his chair, as though Draco had just answered a puzzling question.

"Do you remember your Godfather? Severus Snape?"

Draco stiffened. He hadn't seen Severus since the Fall of Hogwarts. He assumed he was dead, but couldn't know for certain. Everyone refused to talk about him.

"What about him?" Draco asked.

"Do you know what happened to him?" Vagnof questioned. Draco shook his head. "Perhaps you should find out. I know what you said to Harry Potter the night of the Celebration Ball," Vagnof said, and Draco's blood ran cold. Vagnof raised his hands. "Relax. Though what you said to him will hardly do him or the world any good, it nevertheless reveals your standings."

"Sir, my Father-"

"I said relax, Draco. I'm not going to turn you in, or declare you an _enemy to the cause._ I'm just going to let you know that you have a choice about the type of wizard you want to be. That's quite the privilege to have – just look at Potter. He hasn't lived a day in his life without people telling him who he needs to be."

Draco rolled his eyes at the mention of Potter. It was always about Potter. Draco hadn't lived a day in his life without being told to stand straighter, to honor is heritage, to bow to the Dark Lord. But of course, it always comes down to Potter.

"My point is, if you ever come to a decision that… contradicts what you've been taught your whole life, come and see me. I can help you."

"Okay," Draco said automatically. He edged toward the door, wondering if he should report Vagnof as an enemy to the cause. Or if he even wanted to.

Draco was not ready to admit out loud that he had been shaken by the scenes he had seen in the Ministry. Draco had always believed in the basic superiority of wizards, and he found proof of this through the records of war and violence that ran rampant through Muggle History. Their histories were literally filled with wars and battles and violence.

Draco had thought being a wizard meant being above that, but watching that battle, Draco saw that there was no difference between wizarding violence and muggle violence, and just like that, his entire perspective of the world was shaken.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. If you haven't yet, please do! I'd love to hear what you think.**


	7. Darkest Reflections

**Chapter 7: Darkest Reflections**

The Dark Soldiers who had been present at the Fall of the Ministry only attended half the amount of Training Sessions as they did before. Instead, they were sent on assignments to hunt down Muggleborns and Blood Traitors. Every day was filled with apprehension. They would receive their roll of parchment containing a photo and details of a fugitive's last known location, open it, and hope against hope that it wasn't someone they recognized.

Harry trekked through a thick forest beside Ron, Seamus, and Neville. The trees were large and tall, and the floor was covered in a constant knee-high layer of undergrowth, making their progress slow.

"Why do they always hide in the wild?" Ron grumbled, irritably shaking his leg free from a forest crawler.

No one responded to Ron's complaining. Harry for one was too busy worrying about their current assignment. The name they had been given was Regulus Black, and Harry could only assume it was a relative of Sirius'. What if Sirius was here, too?

"Where is this bloody cottage?" Ron said. The cottage where Regulus was hiding was supposed to be somewhere in this forest.

"Will you shut up and just appreciate the fact that we're not in Gaunt Camp for just two seconds?" Seamus snapped.

"Oh yes! I had completely forgotten!" Ron said derisively. "Look at us! We're free! We're free to frolic in the forest! Why don't we go get some ice cream while we're at it!"

"That'd be the day," Harry joined in. "Four dark wizards walk into an ice cream shop… sounds like the start of a joke."

"We're not dark wizards," Neville said.

"Will you quit being in denial about our status as dark wizards? It's bloody annoying," Ron said.

"Guys," Harry said, pointing in the distance, where a patch of white stood out against the trees. "Does that look like a cottage to you?"

They approached and found a small one-room cottage constructed with large white stone. A crumbling chimney took up on side of the cottage, and a thin plume of smoke tumbled from the top.

"What kind of idiot doesn't put on a concealment charm?" Ron said. They rushed forwards. Harry felt the thrum of wards and stopped short. He quickly snatched the other soldiers' sleeves to stop them, too.

"Someone who's got something else in mind," Harry said. "There's an invisible ward surrounding it."

"Oh," Ron said, "Well, you remove them, Harry. You're the prodigy."

"Because Merlin knows Ron's useless," Seamus muttered.

"Fuck off, Seamus."

Harry stepped forward. He closed his eyes and crept forward until he could feel the wall of magic directly in front of him. He held his hand up to the ward.

"It's a Repellant Ward," Harry said.

"What does it matter? Just get rid of it," Ron replied.

"It matters because I'll be blown twenty feet into the air, and if Regulus is inside, he'll be notified."

Ron said, "So you better recover quickly."

Harry rolled his eyes, gave an exasperated little sigh, then stuck his hand straight into the ward. He was immediately blasted of his feet.

"Mobilicorpus!" Neville yelled, and Harry was caught in mid-air, feeling the very strange changes in gravity that made his stomach go queasy. Neville lowered him to the ground.

"Thanks," Harry said, and moved to the wards again.

There was a commotion from inside the cottage. He held up his hands to the wards and closed his eyes. Wards were created by overlapping layers and layers of magic. To get through, all you had to do was separate the layers, like untangling wires. He closed his eyes and focused on finding his way through. His fingers twitched as though he were physically sorting out the magic.

"Hurry up, Harry," Seamus shouted as the commotion inside the cottage grew.

"Shut up," Harry said distractedly. A moment later, the wards gave way and Harry ran through, quickly followed by the others. They ran to the cottage and threw open the door, where they found Regulus facing them, clutching a wand in one hand and a duffel bag in the other.

"I should have known Voldemort would send his minions after me," he said in a steady voice.

"Drop the wand," Harry said.

Regulus smiled at Harry. "Well, isn't this a pleasure. The Savior himself, come to take me to my death."

"Sorry mate," Ron said. "It's either you or us."

Regulus was the first to attack, but the soldiers were quick to retaliate. They exchanged curses. Regulus was a good fighter, but not when he was up against four Dark Wizards. He ducked behind a table.

"I know how to defeat him – the Dark Lord," Regulus shouted. "I have his horcrux. I can destroy it – I just need Basilisk venom!"

"This guy's nuts," Seamus said.

They slowly crept around the table. Regulus sprang to his feet and ran to the door, but Neville's trip jinx sent him hurtling to the floor. Ron hauled him to his feet.

Regulus said to Harry, "The Dark Lord can be defeated. Let me go and I promise you I will find a way to destroy his horcrux."

"What is a horcrux?" Harry said. He thought he had heard that term before.

"It's an object that contains a part of Voldemort's soul, so that he cannot die."

"What a loud of Griffin-shit," Ron said. "Don't listen to him, Harry, he's off his rocker."

"I'm not crazy," Regulus said firmly. "Why do you think he's so confident going into battles? It's because he knows that he is about as close to immortal as you can get. Here, I have it." He reached up to his neck and pulled out a locket on a long chain. "Take it. Keep it safe. Destroy it. Voldemort will be mortal once more."

Harry reached out to take it despite Ron's huff of indignation. The second his fingers closed around it, he could feel a change, like an electrical shift in the air.

"You feel it, too," Regulus said. "Don't wear it for too long at one time – it'll send you mad." Regulus turned to Ron. "You can take me to Voldemort now."

Ron made to pull him along, but Harry stopped him, still clutching the horcrux.

"No," Harry said. "Let him go."

Ron replied, "Harry, we'll get our asses kicked if we do that."

"I don't care, he's helped us. He doesn't deserve to die," Harry said firmly.

"You _believe_ him?" Ron spluttered.

"You know what Rodulphus will do if we go back empty handed," Neville said.

"I told you, I don't care-"

"Potter," Regulus said. "It's fine. I've done some pretty terrible things in my life. I'm going to have to pay for them one way or another. I'm ready to face Voldemort. Just promise me you'll find a way to destroy that horcrux."

Ron continued to take Regulus out of the Cottage and to the edge of the anti-appiration wards.

"Oh, and Harry," Regulus said. "If you ever see Sirius again, tell him that he was right all along, and I'm sorry."

Harry nodded resolutely. The group disappirated and landed in the underground cells of the Ministry. They dutifully left Regulus in a cell, and returned to Gaunt Camp.

The first thing Harry did was to rush to his room in the Barracks and stash the horcrux underneath a loose floorboard.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Hermione sat between Ginny and Tonks as the Order meeting began. Kingsley Shacklebolt stood at the head of the table. He had taken leadership of the Order after Dumbledore's death.

"Good Evening, everyone," he said. "In light of recent events, I've called this meeting to discuss what our next moves should be. As you all know, it appears that Voldemort has been using the kidnapped children as an army, who are currently being used to hunt down Blood Traitors and Muggleborns. I propose that we continue to search for Voldemort's horcruxes as we have been, as his defeat will lead to the liberation of the Dark Soldiers."

"We've been looking for those horcruxes for two years," Mad Eye Moody said gruffly. "We've got no leads. Nothing. You-Know-Who's got them hid well."

"We need to make contact with the Dark Soldiers. They could have knowledge that we don't," Remus suggested.

"Again, we've been searching for the soldiers for two years and found nothing," Mad-Eye Moody replied.

"Well, that was a short meeting," Sirius grumbled.

"We couldn't find them because we didn't know what we were looking for," Kingsley said. "We know now that Voldemort is using them as soldiers. He must be training them, which means he must be keeping them in some kind of training facility."

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," Hermione suggested. "Maybe instead of us finding them, we should let them find us. Voldemort kidnapped our children, so why don't we kidnap his soldiers."

Ginny sat up beside her. "Voldemort's using the soldiers to hunt down Muggleborns. We could create a fake hideout somewhere and then booby-trap it."

Fred began, "Sounds like a job-"

"For the Weasley Twins," George finished. They high-fived.

"Boys, if you wouldn't mind noting the serious nature of topic at hand and changing your behavior accordingly, that would be appreciated," Kingsley said. "However, this trap may be our best option. Hopefully, we will catch a soldier who is willing and ready to help us. Excellent idea, Hermione."

Hermione's cheeks glowed at the praise, then she got embarrassed that she was putting so much weight on someone's approval of her, causing her cheeks to go even hotter. She could see Ginny grinning at her in her peripheral vision, but refused to look at her. The meeting was dismissed shortly after, with various people being assigned jobs to begin scouting possible locations.

Hermione and Ginny went upstairs to their shared bedroom. Hermione picked up a book and Ginny lay on her bed staring at the roof. Ginny thought of Ron. Where he was. What he might be doing right now. She wondered if their thoughts had ever crossed – that Ron had thought of Ginny at the exact same moment that Ginny thought about Ron.

"Hermione?" Ginny said quietly. "Do you think he'll remember me?"

"Who?" Hermione said distractedly.

"Ron. Do you think if we met, that he would try to kill me?"

Hermione looked up from her book. "I hope not."

Ginny frowned at the wooden slats in the ceiling. She'd hoped for a more definitive response.

"Why did he only kidnap them?"

"What do you mean?"

Ginny flipped over onto her stomach. "Why did he only kidnap boys? What was wrong with us?"

Hermione bit her lip. Ginny hadn't grown up in the Muggle world like Hermione had. Hermione would be the first to admit that sexism was far less prominent in the wizarding community than it was in the muggle one, but it was still there.

"Does Lord Voldemort seem like the kind of person who would be open to the idea of inclusion and openness and equal rights?" Hermione said.

Ginny cocked her head and feigned ignorance, "Hm, now that you mention it…"

Hermione smiled. "We should just be glad that he isn't, otherwise we'd be in that training facility, too."

Ginny returned Hermione's smile. "He underestimates us," she said with bright, knowing eyes. "Let's make him pay for it."

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Harry and Ron patrolled lazily up and down the main street of Hogsmeade. Masks down, wands drawn. Their presence meant that the street was nearly empty. Just the way Voldemort would want it.

Having Dark Soldiers patrol popular wizarding locations was a constant reminder to everyone else, of the hold Voldemort had on the wizarding world. The soldiers themselves just found it a dull waste of time.

Hogsmeade was, superficially, just as Harry remembered it. All the shops were the same as they always had been, but the jolly wonderment and feeling of magic in the air that had been present during Harry's school days was gone. He wondered whether it was because Hogsmeade had changed, or he had.

"I'm stating for the record that I think the locket is a useless piece of junk," Ron said quietly next to Harry as they walked.

"Noted," Harry said dryly. He stared at the ground moodily. "But what if it really is a disgusting little shard of Voldemort's soul? We need try and destroy it."

"Harry, souls don't exist. Definitely not in a corporeal form. You can't just pick it up and tear it in two. Besides, how in the hell do you destroy a soul?"

"Basilisk venom," Harry said. "Weren't you listening to him?" Harry stopped and turned to look up at the ruins of Hogwarts that stood over Hogsmeade.

"On no," Ron said. "Don't even think about-"

"Come on," Harry said, walking away.

"No! We're on duty. We'll get into trouble."

"You already know my position on _trouble_ ," Harry snapped without stopping.

"What has gotten into you? Go on your own," Ron shouted after him. "You better hope Voldemort doesn't think to use the Locating Rune!"

Harry ignored him. The way to Hogwarts was longer than Harry remembered, and it was filled with painful nostalgia. He still remembered hiding under the Invisibility Cloak on his first trip down to Hogsmeade.

The wards around Hogwarts were completely gone, and Harry hurried up the grounds.

Hogwarts was barely recognizable. Several of the towers had fallen, and large gouges had been taken out of castle walls as though someone had come and taken huge bites out of the castle.

Harry entered through the Main Entrance, and peered into the Great Hall. The roof had caved in, revealing the real cloudy sky above. Among the wreckage, weeds and moss had already started to grow. Harry scowled at the wreckage.

He should be in his Seventh Year of Hogwarts right now. Playing quidditch, bickering about quidditch, dragging Hermione away from her studies to watch quidditch. All of that was gone forever.

Harry precariously walked up the marble staircase and through the maze of corridors. Some places had been completely blocked up, forcing Harry to find a different route.

Harry finally found the third-floor girl's bathroom. It had been spared from the wreckage of the rest of the school, and remained largely unchanged. Harry opened the door and waited. After a moment he realized that he was expecting Moaning Myrtle to burst from a toilet. She didn't. Could ghosts die?

Harry stepped up to the basin and hissed _open_ in parceltongue. The entrance revealed itself, and Harry entered the Chamber of Secrets.

He trudged along the tunnels until he came to a long corridor with a high ceiling that disappeared into darkness. Harry remembered how terrified he had been when he walked along here for the first time, with the statue of Salazar Slytherin looming down over him.

And lying before it, with a great crack through its skull, was the skeleton of the Basilisk Harry had killed. It suddenly occurred to Harry how absurd it was to have such a legendary monster living beneath a school.

Harry approached the skeleton and peered into its gaping mouth at the neat rows of pearly fangs. He picked one, grabbed firm hold of it, and pulled. After some effort, it broke away from the skull with a sickening crackle.

"Right," Harry said to no one in particular. He reached beneath his collar and took off the locket. He dropped it on the ground, and immediately he could feel the weight of it leave him. He suddenly felt lighter than air. He knelt in front of the locket, gripping the Basilisk fang in his hand.

"Right," Harry said again. "I'm going to stab a harmless-looking object with the most potent venom known to wizard-kind. And I am not crazy."

He lifted the fang in preparation, and hissed _open._ The locket snapped open and a black fog erupted from the locket. Harry was blown onto his back as the mass swirled above him and took shape.

Harry was staring up at himself. He had red eyes and the same discolored skin as Voldemort's. He held his arms out as though to embrace Harry, and he saw that his alternate self was free of shackles and runes, and bore only the Dark Mark.

His darker self laughed and stared down at him.

" _You're pathetic_ ," he hissed in parceltongue. "You cower on the floor. You spurn the Dark Lord, but you and he could be so much more. Stop denying your true self. We're killers. We're Dark Wizards. Embrace it!"

Harry got to his feet. He couldn't help giving his supposed darker self a derisive smile. This was the best defense Voldemort's soul could come up with?

"Admit it, Harry. We crave the darkness. It's where we belong. That's when we feel the most alive. We love that feeling, don't we Harry? Being _alive._ "

Harry found the locket at the source of his evil self's apparition. He plunged towards it with the fang raised.

"Our friends have already given up on us!" Harry's apparition shouted. Harry paused despite himself. "They all hate us. We're the disgraced savior! They looked up to us as their last hope, but now they've given up on us. Sirius Black wants us dead. He thinks we're just like Peter. Worse than Peter, in fact. Hermione refuses to speak our name."

Harry just stood there with his apparition circling him in the air.

 _Harry_.

"We mean nothing to them now – we never did. We were always a tool – a weapon to be used against the Dark Lord."

 _Harry!_

"It's time we took our fate into our own hands! Join the Dark Lord. Embrace the Dark Wizard inside us. Show the world that we will not be controlled by anyone any longer!"

 _HARRY!_ Hermione's voice shouted in the back of his head.

Hermione. His best friend who was like a sister. Hermione, who had believed in him and saw him as a friend above all else. Maybe the real Hermione had given up on him. But the one in his head hadn't.

Harry held the fang tighter. He saw the locket and lunged for it, fang raised.

"YOU ARE WEAK! YOU ARE NOTHING WITHOUT THE DARK LORD-"

Harry plunged the fang into the locket, and a thick black substance oozed from the puncture. His evil self screamed and contorted and dissolved to blackness.

Harry stayed there for a moment, holding the fang to the locket and breathing heavily. He was slightly unnerved by the sudden stillness. He'd done it. He picked up the locket. The charge in the air that the locket had previously exhibited was gone. Now it was just a piece of metal.

Harry suddenly wondered if Voldemort would know. If having your soul destroyed was something you could feel. He wondered what Voldemort would do to him if he knew. Harry suddenly realized that he didn't care. Voldemort was mortal. The next time he saw Voldemort, he was going to kill him.

* * *

 **Nothing like a bit of dramatic irony. Just to be clear, Voldemort still has seven horcruxes, Harry just doesn't realise it yet.**


	8. The Final Price is a Gobstone

**Chapter 8: The Final Price is a Gobstone**

"There he is!"

Exactly seven seconds after Harry appirated back to Gaunt Camp, he was seized by two Death Eaters. He quickly found that he couldn't move a muscle in his body and that his wand was dangling mockingly above his head. Harry growled in frustration. He'd had a plan.

The Death Eaters took him around to the left hand side of the Manor, to the entrance of the Dungeon. Harry's heart sank. So Voldemort knew about his little expedition. Shit.

They threw open the trapdoor and Harry apprehensively stepped through and climbed down into the Dungeon. He blinked to try and see in the gloom. Lord Voldemort was waiting for him. His face was unreadable. He was accompanied by an old man with bronze skin and a weathered face.

"Lo, Harry," Voldemort said in mockery of the soldier's crude form of greeting. "Welcome back to the Dungeon." He gestured to the wizard behind him. "This is Vagnof."

"What have I done," Harry said boldly, while stubbornly ignoring the pain in his scar. He tried to gauge Voldemort's emotions, but couldn't feel even a hint of echoed anger.

"Nothing," Voldemort said with a laugh, throwing Harry off-guard. "You have done absolutely nothing wrong, Harry. You've been a model soldier. I want to thank you for it. A gift, if you will. A gift that every wizard craves."

It was in that moment that Harry realized Voldemort had no idea his horcrux had been destroyed. The Dark Lord must be neglecting the Locating Rune. He felt a wave of relief rush over him, but then realized it was something else. He felt dizzy and lightheaded. The world tilted dangerously sideways.

"What-" he said sluggishly, He reached out to find support, but found nothing and crashed against the floor. The blackness was already seeping over his mind.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

He woke up suddenly, focused and alert as though someone had flicked a switch. He was lying on a rough stone floor. He was still in the Dungeons. Something was wrong with him. He was thrumming. He sat up, trying to figure out what sort of spell he was under, but then realized that it was his own magic.

"He's awake."

He could feel the energy of his own magic that wrapped around him. It was suffocating. It was like a monster of its own trying to burst its way out of him. As if to prove the thought, a crackling burst of energy exploded from his hands. He cried out in pain. What the hell was going on? He tried to contain the growing energy inside him, balling his hands into fists, but the magic grew and with it his panic.

Two Death Eaters seized his shoulders and hoisted him to his feet as though he weighed nothing. The energy continued to crackle and burst from Harry. The Death Eaters were oblivious. They forced him up from the Dungeon and into the blinding daylight. The forced him onward, stumbling and gasping, to the Atrium.

A group of soldiers were dueling each other, but they stopped immediately when they saw a crackling and sparkling Harry Potter being carried in, followed by Voldemort, and an old wizard. Harry writhed in the Death Eater's grip, lashing out at them with an intensity that was wild, savage.

They threw him on the floor so that he was facing off with Lord Voldemort. Harry shuddered and ground his teeth together. Biting back the pain. With each crackle of energy, he flinched as though he was being electrocuted.

"Get up, Potter," Voldemort said, holding his wand at the ready.

"What – have – you – done?" Harry bit out, fighting against the energy that pulsed through his being.

"I've given you an upgrade," Voldemort said. "Now get up and thank me for it."

Harry braced himself on all fours. " _No_."

"Potter, your magical core has been largened, causing a massive influx of magical energy. There is too much of it inside you. Stop holding on to it. Let it go, and duel with me."

"I DON'T WANT THIS," Harry cried out.

"Crucio!"

Harry instinctively rolled out of the red spell's path. His eyes were wide and darting. His breath came in double time. _You're going to let him toy with you?_ Hermione's voice said in the back of his head.

"Fight back, Potter. Use this magic. Twist it to your will. Turn your weakness into your strength. I'm giving you permission to duel with me."

 _Duel with the Dark Lord._ Harry gave in. He felt the magic inside him, bundled it into his hands, and then hurled it across the room at Voldemort. He stumbled to his feet, hands splayed out, letting out a cry of fury. The magical energy crackled across the room at Voldemort, who stood crouched under a blue shield.

He unleashed everything he had on the Dark Lord with a desperate kind of purpose. Voldemort began to fight back, and just like that, they'd entered into a proper duel. He and Voldemort were a match. Harry would never admit to anyone how good it felt. The magic responded to his will in a way it never had before. He felt powerful. He felt alive.

It was time for Lord Voldemort to die.

"Avada kedavra!" Harry bellowed, and the green curse flew across the room. Voldemort stepped out of the way with a laugh.

"That's it, Harry!" Voldemort said delightedly. His reaction confused Harry, which only achieved to infuriate him further.

As the duel wore on, Harry began to feel a different kind of exhaustion. A magical one. The more magic he used, the less he could feel its thrum. Voldemort did not slow down his onslaught, so Harry forced himself to keep up. But his power was leaving him.

Harry's shield charm suddenly gave way, and all of Voldemort's cutting curses sliced into his torso. Harry let out a guttural groan, raising a hand to the blood seeping from his overalls. He raised his other hand to retaliate, swayed for a moment, and promptly collapsed.

Voldemort stared from Harry to Vagnof.

"He has depleted his magical core," Vagnof said. "Most likely because he is not yet used to such a large amount. In time, he will be able to sustain such high amounts of power usage for longer."

Voldemort nodded and ordered the Death Eaters to take Harry back to the Dungeons. This was only the beginning of his plans.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Draco lazily lounged in an emerald green sofa, picking at the frays in the creases of the fine silken fabric. Lucius paced in front of him.

"First you disappear at the Celebration Ball," Lucius said. "Then, I find you _drunk_ the next morning, and now I find out you've been skipping classes. What in Salazar's name has gotten into you?"

Draco said nothing and continued to focus his complete attention on the sofa.

"You will make eye contact when I talk to you. I will not have you neglecting opportunities that are handed to you on a silver platter. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to get back into the Dark Lord's good favor? I will not have you throw all of my hard work away."

"Whatever happened to Severus?" Draco said suddenly with an innocent glance up at his father.

Lucius paused in his pacing. He drew himself up to his full height and said tightly, "You will not speak that name in this household."

"But he was my Godfather, and he just-"

"He is _not_ your Godfather," Lucius said firmly. "Severus Snape was a traitor and a spy and _not_ the topic of this conversation."

"Did Voldemort kill him?"

Lucius slapped his son soundly across the face. "The _Dark Lord_ did as he saw fit, and you will not disrespect his name like that again, understood?"

"Yes, Sir," Draco said. He didn't move and resisted the urge to life a hand to his stinging face.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Hermione, Remus and Mundungus gazed up at the muggle house sandwiched between two identical others. It was constructed from white stone and had a wrought iron fence around the front. They opened the rusted gate and went down the overgrown path to the front door. The door opened with a prolonged squeal. It revealed a long, thin corridor similar to the one at the entrance to Grimmauld Place.

"It's perfect," Hermione said.

"They'll have only one way to go. They'll have no choice but to fall into our trap," Remus said.

They surveyed the rest of the house and decided that it would be the best spot to kidnap one of the soldiers. With the location of their fake hideout confirmed, Remus and Hermione turned expectantly to Mundungus. The crooked wizard stood leaning against the wall, twirling his wand in his fingers.

"Why's gotta be me?" he said.

"Because the rest of us are too high-priority," Remus explained. "If they discover the magical trace of a known Order member, they'll send out a whole team, but with you, they'll only send out one."

Mundungus continued to grumble for a bit, but finally he dutifully went around the house, casting random spells until a large enough trace had been created. Meanwhile, Remus and Hermione set to work setting the trap over the entrance hall, so that anyone who entered would fall instantly asleep.

As Hermione worked, she couldn't help but feel a little excited. Remus had warned her about getting her hopes up, but Hermione just couldn't stop herself from hoping that someone like Harry or Ron would be caught. She'd missed them so much over these last years. She'd fretted endlessly over their safety. Maybe this would be their chance to finally bring the Dark Soldiers home.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

"It's called an Entrancement," Voldemort said.

He stood in front of Harry, who was chained to a chair back in the Dungeons. Vagnof stood silently behind the Dark Lord. Harry stared mutely up at Voldemort and slumped in the chair. He felt too weak and exhausted to feel any kind of righteous anger.

"This particular Entrancement was one of Vagnof's creation. What do you call this one, Vagnof?"

"The Donumvi Entrancement," Vagnof said simply.

Harry stared dumbly at both of them. The longer he waited, the more he could feel his magic returning to him. The thrum was there. It itched under his skin.

"I have some grand plans for you, Harry Potter," Voldemort said, smiling down at Harry. "I intend for you to become a much more active symbol in my little revolution. Together, we will create a new era for wizard kind. This means, however, that I need to ensure your ability to hold your own in battle, no matter what. Hence, I have given you the gift of power. More power than most wizards can dream of."

"I don't want it," Harry lied. "Take it back."

Voldemort smiled. "It's a bit late for that now, Harry. Besides, you can't tell me you didn't love every moment of that duel in the Atrium."

Voldemort didn't wait for a response. Harry's silence confirmed it. So did Hermione's voice in the back of his head.

"You are now extremely valuable to me, Harry. Which forces me to reconsider some of my long-held attitudes." As he spoke, he reached into his robes and took out a long chain with a pendant the size of his palm attached to it. "I've spent so much time and effort molding you into what you are today, Harry, that it really would be a shame if some trifling little Killing Curse were to come along and put that all to waste."

There was an intensity to Voldemort's stare that made Harry's blood run cold in his veins. He sat up in his chair, staring cautiously up at the Dark Lord. Voldemort's next words rang in Harry's ears.

"Do you know what a horcrux is?" Harry could hear his heart beating in his ears. "It is an object that can contain a part of a wizard's soul within it, thus tying that wizard to this world and obscuring the halting claw of death. A wizard with a horcrux can essentially live forever. I have often stated that only I can live forever, but I've changed my policy all for you, Harry. You are a very lucky boy."

Harry shook his head again with wide eyes. He opened his mouth, but couldn't form words. Something was stuck in his throat. The panic gripped him and held on tight. Voldemort held the pendant closer for Harry to see. It was a small golden lion with an emerald snake wrapped around its body.

"Do you like it?" Voldemort asked. "I thought it was quite fitting."

"You can't!" Harry said, suddenly finding his voice. "You can't! I d-don't want a horcrux! You can't!"

The trapdoor opened, flooding the dim dungeon with blinding light. Two Death Eaters entered, dragging a man between them. They threw the man, shaking uncontrollably and gibbering madly, in front of Harry.

"What are you doing?" Harry demanded. He thrashed against the chains, staring wildly from Voldemort to the trembling man. "Don't you fucking dare. You can't do this!"

"Relax, Harry, it's not all that bad. You'll feel odd for a bit, but then you'll get used to it. Just be glad I'm only giving you one instead of seven."

" _Seven?"_

"Well, yes," Voldemort said in a disturbingly flippant voice. "That is the strongest magical number. So now you know, if ever you feel like turning the Killing Curse on me, there are seven horcruxes standing in your way."

 _Seven._ Harry couldn't fathom tearing his soul into seven pieces. No wonder Voldemort was insane. No wonder he was barely human.

"Are you ready, Harry?" Voldemort said, removing his wand and pointing it at the man.

"NO!" Harry bellowed. He splayed out his hands, and released the magic that had been steadily building up within him. Voldemort, Vagnof, the man, and the two Death Eaters hurtled backward into the opposite stone wall. Harry desperately thrashed against the chains, trying to turn his magic onto the bindings, pleading with the metal links to release him. Blood seeped from beneath his bruised wrists.

"Vagnof!" Voldemort snarled as he got to his feet. Vagnof reached into his robes and revealed two furry golden objects. He threw them, where they morphed into two little monkeys in midair and dropped to the ground. They ran at Harry. Harry raised his hands to stop them, but they paid his wild bursts of magic no heed. They climbed up his legs and wrapped themselves around his wrists.

Immediately, Harry could feel his own magic cut off from him. It simply wasn't there. He flayed his hands again, tried to cast something, but nothing happened. He growled and tried to slam the monkeys against the arm of the chair, but they paid him no heed. They'd gone solid and inanimate around his wrists.

"Thank you, Vagnof," Voldemort said as he dusted himself off.

"No," Harry said, distractedly jarring his wrists against the shackles. "Please, no. You can't do this."

"Watch me," Voldemort hissed with his reptilian smile.

* * *

 **I'm not very nice to Harry. Have you noticed? Writing is weird like that. You take a perfectly good, happy character, pick a moment in their life, and then just fuck shit up from then on out. What a beautiful process.**


	9. The Rise and the Fall

**Chapter 9: The Rise and the Fall**

Harry thought he had known intimately the language of pain. Years later, Harry would remember most two things: the blood oozing and gushing from the dead man's throat, and the feeling of having your soul ripped in two. There was nothing like it. No pain akin to it. The Cruciatus Curse was a Tickling Jinx in comparison. It was the kind of pain that transcended beyond the physical. It was everywhere. In was inside him. It was outside him. It was in the air. It was a part of his existence. It was in every atom of every neuron in his body. It was in every thought and emotion and impression of his mind. The pain was him, and he was pain.

Later, the only way he could describe it was that it was like having everyone you ever loved die in front of you in the most prolonged and excruciating way possible, while simultaneously being under ten Cruciatus Curses.

Harry woke up suddenly, feeling the absence of some intrinsic part of him the moment he opened his eyes. He was still in the Dungeon, lying of the floor. Panic gripped him. A beast wrapped its claws tight around his heart. He put a hand against his chest, and felt as though he was hollow underneath.

His eyes landed on Lord Voldemort. He was sitting lazily on the chair Harry had been chained to. The pendant swayed lazily from his hand. Voldemort was watching Harry with calculating red eyes.

"Well done, Harry," Voldemort said in a soft, calm voice that did not assimilate with the desolation inside him. "You did very well. You were so silent. I thought we might have killed you after all."

Harry watched the pendant swing back and forth in Voldemort's hand. The pendant created a charge in the air as the locket had, but this charge didn't repel him. It sang. He could feel it calling him. He wanted it.

Voldemort bundled the locket up in his hand and tossed it to him. Harry caught it reflexively, and the change was instant. The gaping emptiness inside him was filled. He was whole again. The sudden rush of euphoria made Harry release a soft gasp. It was like returning home.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Voldemort said as he watched Harry's reaction. "How complete you feel when you hold your own soul in your hands." He flicked his hand, and the locket went flying out of Harry's palm. Harry flinched at the sudden separation and tried to snatch it back out of the air, but it sailed into Voldemort's grip. "And how empty you feel without it."

Harry gazed at Voldemort for a moment, then curled his hand into a fist and closed his eyes, trying to swallow down the emptiness and the craving inside him.

"What have you done?" Harry said. His voice felt as hollow as his chest.

"I've made you invincible," Voldemort replied. "I've ensured that you will never experience the Final Price." Voldemort lifted the chain over his head so that the pendant rested around his neck. "You will serve me for all eternity."

Harry thought he had known how to hate, but just like pain, Voldemort had driven him to levels he never knew existed. There was nothing compared to the loathing Harry felt as he stared at a piece of his own being hang from Lord Voldemort's neck. He tried to swallow it down, but it rose as sour bile in the back of his throat.

"You monster," Harry bit out. "You can't _do this to me_!"

He stumbled off the stone floor, felt the pulse of his magic, and released. He hurled it at Voldemort. The Dark Lord was read, however, and this time Harry went flying into the wall.

A cry of pain burst from him, but the moment he contacted with the floor he was back on his feet. Voldemort was moving toward the entrance. Harry stood and unleashed everything he had. Voldemort ascended the steps, maintaining a blue shield while Harry hurled curses and yelled abuses at him. Harry ran up the steps, blinded by savage desperation. Voldemort gave him a smile, flicked his hand, and Harry went crashing back down to the stone floor.

Harry landed on his back, and all the breath in his body left him. He gasped for air as Voldemort stepped through the trapdoor and slammed it shut, smothering Harry in darkness.

Harry sucked in several broken breaths, groaning at each exhale. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. The angry beast was still growling inside him. He cried out, the blackness stifling his cries like a blanket.

He gingerly got back up and stumbled up the stairs. He pounded on the entrance. He threw his entire body against it. He gave it every ounce of magic inside him. He thrashed against it while wet hot tears streaked down his face.

Harry pressed his forehead against the entrance. He swallowed down the sobs. He felt his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. The anger bled from his heart, seeping away, leaving a tremoring coldness in its wake. He climbed back down the steps, and discovered that he wasn't alone.

The man. His corpse lay discarded in the far corner. A gaping black slit in his neck. Harry started, felt the revulsion stir the beast inside him, and stepped hurriedly backward as far from the corpse as he could get.

He connected with the opposite wall. He slid down and drew his knees up close to his chest. The black shackle around his wrist glinted in the darkness. He stared at the etched words. _UNTIL THE FINAL PRICE._ Those words had an all new meaning.

Forever _._

And he'd actually had had the gall to think that he could kill Voldemort.

His breathing began to follow a regular rhythm. His heart rate began to slow. As the hysteria died, the emptiness rose to take its place. Some intrinsic part of him was lost. He felt like a hollow shell. He felt inhuman.

He remembered the night after he had killed that Muggle. He'd sat awake in his cell room, repeatedly thrusting his hand through the blue wards over his doorway, again and again. It caused a shock to run through him each time. He'd done it just to feel something other than the crushing guilt. He remembered thinking that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if he were dead.

Leave it up to Lord Voldemort to take death itself away from him, too.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

If there was one thing Draco hated, it was waiting around for an indefinite amount of time. Standing out in the middle of a grassy field under the cover of night, absolutely freezing, he found it very easy to hate everyone who ever lived.

"Where are they?" Draco hissed. He jumped from foot to foot and rubbed his hands together.

"Patience, Mr. Malfoy," Vagnof said beside him. "Remember that it is they who are doing us the favor."

"Right," Draco scoffed. "We know everything there is to know about how Lord Voldemort operates and what it takes to bring him down, but _they're_ the ones with the favor. Remind me how you got me to agree to this ridiculous idea?"

Vagnof sighed. "By reminding you of what you already know. What your family does and who they affiliate themselves with are terrible and unjustifiable. And you don't want to be a part of that."

"So, can't I just run away? I'll go holidaying in Russia. Let someone else save the world."

"Did you ever find out what happened to Severus Snape?" Vagnof asked.

"Just that he was a traitor and got himself killed by the Dark Lord," Draco said.

Vagnof pursed his lips. "I suppose that's close enough to the truth. You know, we were once asked to scope out an abandoned building as a potential safe house, and we came across a boggart. Would you like to guess what the boggart turned into for Severus?"

Draco shrugged. "A pigmy puff?"

"It turned into Harry Potter, Draco. Dead."

Draco blinked. "What?" he said incredulously. It _always_ came back to Potter.

"It's true," Vagnof said. "He was quite embarrassed about it. He tried to obliviate me, and when that didn't work, simply refused to speak with me."

"Why would his boggart be a dead Potter?"

"Why indeed," Vagnof said. He held up a hand. Two wizards had appirated a few yards away. They approached and introduced themselves as Tonks and Kingsley.

"Well, we're here," Tonks said. She held her wand loosely by her side, but the threat was clear. "You have our ears."

"We're here to offer our services to the Order of the Phoenix," Vagnof said. "We are both privy to a considerable amount of information that I imagine would be highly useful to your cause. We are also open to working as spies for you."

Tonks and Kingsley shared a look.

"Just going to throw an idea out there – tell me what you think of it," Kingsley said. "The Dark Lord needs intel on the Order of the Phoenix, so he sends a ragtag duo to offer themselves as spies for us so that they can in turn act as spies for Voldemort."

Vagnof smiled, unfazed. "We do not wish to be inducted into your ranks – you do not have to tell us anything of your organization. We simply come offering information. You can do with it whatever you like, though I do hope you will hear us out. We merely want to do our part in bringing down the Dark Lord."

Tonks crossed her arms. "Prove it."

Vagnof seemed to steel himself. "Well, Voldemort is essentially immortal because he has these objects known as-"

"We already know about Voldemort's horcruxes," Kingsley said with a smile.

"You _do_?" Draco said incredulously. Vagnof cast him a cautionary look.

"Do you know where they're hidden?" Tonks asked.

Vagnof hesitated, "Unfortunately, we do not. The Dark Lord has kept that knowledge privy only to himself. Perhaps I can offer up some different information. Voldemort uses three runes carved into every Dark Soldier's skin in order to control them. One connects them all together, one displays their exact location at any given time, and the third summons them to the Dark Lord's side. I don't suppose you knew about any of that?"

Tonks and Kingsley's worried looks were enough for Vagnof to know that this was news to them.

"No – no, we did not know about that," Kingsley said slowly. Tonks and Kingsley shared another look. This new information could jeopardize their plan to kidnap a soldier.

"We have much more to share with you," Vagnof said earnestly. "In whatever manner you deem necessary."

"We'll need to talk to the others," Kingsley said.

"You don't have any questions for us?" Vagnof asked.

Tonks turned to Draco. "Yeah, I got one," she said, staring acutely at him. "Last I heard, you were the top dog of the Pureblood elite. What's got you in a grassy field in the middle of the night?"

Draco swallowed. "This dog just realized he didn't have much of a taste for the meat he was being fed."

Tonks smirked, seemingly satisfied. "You Slytherins and your metaphors."

"We'll be in touch," Kingsley said, and shook Vagnof's hand. He then held out his hand to Draco, and Draco hurriedly shook it. Perhaps this plan wasn't so ridiculous after all.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

When he stepped out of the entrance into the open air, Harry had to close his eyes and take a moment to breath in the fresh air and dim sunlight. His body ached all over. Vagnof stepped out of the entrance and stepped beside him.

"How's your magical core?" Vagnof asked. Harry turned to him in disgust, but found genuine concern on the old man's face. Was that even pity?

Harry cleared his throat. "How long?" was all he said. His voice felt like rough stones grating against each other.

"A day since… it was created," Vagnof replied.

Harry said nothing. The beast crawled around in his gut. It was late evening. The sun was low enough in the sky that Harry guessed the other soldiers would already be behind the Barrack wards, so he stalked in that direction, away from Vagnof.

The soldiers noticed him as he passed through the wards. Ron was the first to reach him.

"Harry! Merlin," he said. "What the fuck happened to you?"

Harry didn't speak. He didn't make eye contact. He brushed past Ron, and all the other soldiers who came up to greet him with identical troubled expressions. He strolled resolutely around behind the Barracks to the Cage. Harry climbed over the chicken wire. Harry swallowed and turned to the soldiers who'd followed him.

"Someone get in," he said. His voice was hoarse like gravel.

A boy Harry didn't recognize climbed into the ring, with eyes that were too bright and a smile that was too eager. Harry cracked his neck and raised his fists. The boy copied him.

Soldiers were crowding around the Cage now. Harry barely comprehended their existence. All he saw was the boy before him. All he felt was his hollow chest, the beast roaring in his gut, and the shackle clasped around his wrist.

Harry pretended to throw a hook punch, and let the boy strike him. He landed a fist in Harry's gut first, quickly followed by a fist against Harry's cheekbone that sent him flying into the chicken wire. Harry gripped the wire and turned back to the boy. He felt the pain blossom. He let it down out the hollowness inside him.

The boy was still smiling, jumping on the balls of his feet. Harry attacked. The boy was a better fighter than Harry anticipated, and it forced him into a heightened kind of focus, but he didn't let the boy touch him again. Finally, Harry's fist collided with the underside of the boy's jaw as he hooked his foot around the boy's leg, so that he went crashing onto the ground on his back.

Harry was on top of him. He raised his fist high into the air and struck the boy's jaw. His face snapped to the side with a wet thud. He delivered another. His knuckles stung. Harry gazed down at the boy with wide eyes. The pendant was sitting around the boy's neck. The beast came alive inside him. The anger erupted like a fire inside him. A grunt escaped Harry as he struck the boy again. And again. The boy's irises had gone red. He was a monster. Harry struck the monster harder.

"Someone stop him!"

Harry felt the bones in the monster's nose crush and splinter against his knuckles. Harry grinned. _I'll make you hurt. I'll make you pay._

Hands gripped him and pried him off the boy. Harry thrashed against them, eyes fixated on the monster. They threw him against the chicken wire and pinned him there.

"I'm not fucking done yet!" Harry snarled, eyes never wavering from the monster in the dirt. He struggled and clawed at the soldiers holding him, but they held tight, shouting in a language Harry couldn't understand. Ron stepped in front of him and placed both hands on either side of Harry's face.

"Harry, stop it!" Ron said insistently, prying Harry's head upward so that they stared eye to eye. Ron looked terrified. "Listen to me! Whatever's happened. Whatever they did to you in there. It's not worth killing one of your own!"

"He's not dead. He can't die! Don't you understand? He's a _monster_ ," Harry snarled, writhing against Ron's grip.

"Guys?"

Ron turned, allowing Harry a clear view to the monster. But there was no monster. Just a soldier with a red, broken face. Lying in the dirt. Unmoving. Dean knelt over the boy with a hand on the boy's chest. "I don't think he's breathing."

Harry went still. The soldiers let go of him. They moved away, turning to the soldier in the dirt. Harry stared down at him. A shiver ran through him. Everything angry and restless and bloodthirsty that had possessed him just moments ago melted away. Instead, he felt impossibly cold.

The boy wasn't the monster. Harry was.

J _ust Harry. Just Harry. Just Harry._

* * *

 **Did I mention that this story would be kind of dark? I wasn't kidding.**


	10. Soldier On

**Chapter 9: Just Harry.**

Harry stopped eating. The gruel was repulsive. He couldn't understand how the other soldiers could eat the stuff. Every bite made him gag.

A Death Eater came up behind him and prodded him in the back.

"Eat, Potter, before I shove it down your throat."

Harry stiffened. He stonily picked up his spoon and forced down a mouthful as the Death Eater watched. Seemingly satisfied, the Death Eater turned away. When he had his entire back turned, Harry took up his entire bowl and hurled it at him. The gruel collided with the back of the Death Eater's head and shattered into pieces. The Death Eater turned around with fury in his eyes. Harry gazed at him challengingly and returned his fury. He stood up, and threw his arms out wide.

"Go on," Harry dared. The Death Eater had smirked, wiped the gruel from his face, and simply walked away.

They stopped sending him on missions, and didn't include him in Training Sessions. Every day he got up, spent the entire day feeling restless and angry, and then lay on his bed every night, begging sleep to take him away. When he was awake he saw the boy's broken face. When he was asleep his evil self taunted him.

Sometimes he wanted to scream and destroy the world and then himself. Other times he wanted to curl in on himself and just fade away. For every moment of every day, he felt the absence of his soul.

The soldiers began to avoid him. Even the mates at his table averted their eyes and sat in silence at meal times. Meanwhile, the Rooks were downright terrified of him. Harry didn't blame them after he'd caught sight of himself in the shower room mirror.

He was terrified of himself. He was a pale shade of white and thin as a stick. He could see his ribs. Dark circles surrounded his eyes. And his eyes. They'd always been a bright green, but now they'd gone a muddy, murky green, as though the colors red and green had blended together in his irises. He looked like his evil self from Voldemort's horcrux. He looked like Voldemort.

He'd spent the next hour dry-heaving over the basin.

 _Just Harry. Just Harry._ _ **Just. Harry.**_

At one point, the Trainers must have gotten tired of seeing Harry brooding about, so they put him to work teaching the Rooks curses. The Trainers would tell Harry to teach the Rooks a certain skill, then they'd disappear for the rest of the day and return at the end to see the Rooks demonstrate it.

Harry quickly grew weary of teaching twelve-year-olds to kill, so one day, instead of teaching the Rooks the numerous different methods of getting yourself out of the way of an oncoming spell, he decided to teach them something from his Fourth Year at Hogwarts. When the Trainers came back, Harry counted them in, and the Rooks proceeded to dance the Box Step.

He was left alone again after that.

Harry sat resolutely watching Alecto Carrow teaching a group of Rooks the Entrail-Expelling Curse on the line of dummies. They were struggling immensely with the spell. Alecto appeared to be taunting them.

One of the Rooks turned to Alecto, raised his wand, and cast something. Harry was on his feet in an instant. Alecto easily blocked the spell and rounded on the Rook. Harry started to hurry over to them. _No._ He thought, and stopped. _Neville is right. They have to learn to keep their head down. He'll get punished a little bit now, while will save him from being punished a lot later on._

Alecto raised his wand and the boy flinched under an unknown spell. Harry was rushing at them before he even knew what he was doing. He viciously ignored Hermione's voice chanting _saving people thing_ over and over in the back of his head.

"Leave him alone!" Harry said, standing between the Rook and Alecto.

"Well, would you look at that," Alecto said. "The Crack comes to the rescue. This is none of your business, Scarface."

Harry folded his arms across his chest. "I just made it my busi-"

The Cruciatus Curse tore through him and for a moment he lost all sense as his body erupted with pain. But the pain was strangely muted. He locked his jaw shut against the searing hot knives on every inch of his body. _I'm Harry. Just Harry._ And he remembered.

The pain stopped to the sound of derisive Death Eater laughter. The Rook was shoving at Alecto, wand forgotten.

"Stop it! You're hurting him. Hurt me! Punish me! Stop hurting him!"

"Scarface is getting tougher," Alecto said as Harry sat up. "I don't think I heard a single squeak from that that entire time. Maybe I didn't do it right. Better do it again just to be-"

"NO!" the Rook jumped in front of Harry, holding his arms out to shield him. "Hurt me instead!"

Harry couldn't help feeling a thrum of pride for the Rook.

"I don't think so, Soldier. You'll start screaming and carrying on instantly. Nothing fun about that. Come on, it's the Post for you."

Alecto gripped the Rook and lead him away to the row of Posts. Harry imagined that they would tie him up and leave him there for a day of two. The Posts were designed so that you had to constantly stay standing. If you began to slip, you'd risk dislocating your two shoulders held behind you. Harry had only spent about a day on the Post – Death Eaters usually liked to come up with more exciting punishments for the Boy-Who-Lived.

The other Rooks gathered around Harry.

"That guy had it coming," one of them said angrily. "Why did you do that?"

Harry sighed. "Because I've got nothing left to lose." He got to his feet. "Now how about you idiots pay me back by never doing something as stupid as attacking a Death Eater."

"But, they're so infuriating," one of them said, balling his hands into fists. "They make us learn all this Dark Magic. I just want to learn how to turn my hair green."

"So do what the rest of us do and take it out in the Cage."

"I can't go in the Cage, I'd just get pummeled," the kid said.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Okay, how about this. If you ever feel yourself getting angry at the Death Eaters, take one of those dummies over there, imagine they're Alecto or Rudolphus or even Voldemort, and then you spell them into the next realm."

"Is that what you do?"

"Yep," Harry said, he pointed to the dummies in order. "The one of the left is Amycus, the one in the middle is Voldemort, and the one on the right is Wormtail."

Harry sighed and left the Rooks as they were. Maybe now they wouldn't be as terrified of him.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Vagnof stood and watched Lord Voldemort. He paced in front of a pensieve depicting the Dark Lord attempting to kill an infant, only to be ripped from his body. Voldemort moved back and forth in front of the memory, deep in thought. Vagnof remained silent and waited in the knowledge that Voldemort would address him when he was ready.

Finally, Voldemort spoke up and asked, "What do you know of the scar on Harry Potter's forehead?"

"Only that it was acquired on the night that is featured in your pensieve."

Voldemort glanced at the pensieve as though he had forgotten it was there, and then turned away in disgust.

"That scar is the source of our connection," Voldemort said. "It causes him pain whenever I am near. Sometimes I can feel an echo of his emotions. I know that he can feel mine. But why? Surely you have some hypothesis on the matter."

"I do not, My Lord."

"That night, I had intended to use Potter's death to create my seventh and final horcrux, but things went wrong. I had assumed that the horcrux simply hadn't been created, but now…" he trailed off.

"My Lord?" Vagnof prompted.

"When we made Harry's horcrux the other night. There were already two souls inside of him. One was his, and the other… was _mine._ "

"My Lord," Vagnof said slowly. "Are you suggesting that Harry Potter is your seventh and final horcrux?"

"He has to be," Voldemort said. He turned suddenly to Vagnof. "You need to fix this, Vagnof."

"It seems to me that things couldn't have worked out for you any better, My Lord. Your horcrux is inside a boy who himself is essentially immortal. You've got your soul wrapped up in two layers, here."

"No!" Voldemort hissed. "Get it out of him. That is your new assignment, Vagnof. Get my soul out of that wretched boy's body."

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

They days wore on, and Harry became more restless. It was like something was rising within him, building towards an explosion. He was in a perpetual state of suspense. He no longer slept at all. He just lay on his bed, feeling the beating of his heart, hearing Hermione in his head. The little sleep he did get was plagued by visions of his evil self.

He went to breakfast the following morning unable to keep still. He bounced his legs. He drummed his fingers against the table. His eyes darted around the room.

"Mate, will you relax?" Ron said. Harry's head snapped to Ron.

"It's trying to escape, Ron," Harry said deliriously. "The other half of me. It's trying to get out!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Harry," Neville said cautiously. "Are you alright."

Harry stared at Neville, and tried to blink away the lights that were fizzling across his vision.

"He's lost it," Ron said angrily. "Bravo! You've finally done it," he shouted at the Death Eaters. "You've finally driven my best friend off the edge!"

Harry snatched the front of Ron's collar and held fast onto it.

"Tell Hermione to _leave me alone_ ," Harry growled. He jammed his finger to his head. "She's in here. _All the time,_ and she drives me insane with her _… morals._ "

A Death Eater seized Harry and pulled him to his feet by the back of his collar.

"Get off me!" Harry snarled. He lashed out with his hands, and a pulse of energy blew everyone away from him. Harry cried out in pain and fell to the ground, feeling dizzy. The magical energy began to crackle around him. He tried to contain it, but it was already bigger than him.

"Get Vagnof!" Someone shouted. He heard the sound of hundreds of footsteps and panicked voices. The magic pulsed through him, each surge bringing a wave of pain with it. Harry steeled himself, tried to find something steady to latch onto, but the world was spinning away from him.

 _Where was Hermione now_? Harry thought desperately. She had no words of wisdom for him.

Suddenly, he felt a weight on his arms, and his magic suddenly clicked off. It was there in all its painful wildness, and the next it was gone. Harry raised his arms, and found those infuriating little monkeys around his wrists again. He looked up and found Vagnof staring grimly down at him.

"Lo, Vagnof," Harry said. "Would you be so kind as to get these little assholes off me?"

Vagnof smiled. "All in good time, Harry."

He helped Harry up and lead him, tripping and stumbling, to the Atrium. He stood him in front of a dummy.

"Alright," Vagnof said. "I'm going to take off the monkeys, and when I do, I want you to take the most magically draining spell you can think of and cast it on this dummy. Ready?"

Harry nodded, and Vagnof flicked his hands. The monkey's heads jerked up, and they sprang from Harry's arms. He instantly felt the magic rush back in as though someone had just knocked down the dam. He raised his hands.

" _Fyrefiend_!"

The cursed fire leapt from Harry's hands and consumed not only the dummy, but half the Atrium. Harry kept the curse going for as long as he could, consuming everything within the vicinity in flames.

Harry finally terminated the curse, breathing heavily. The fire gradually dissipated, revealing an unharmed Atrium.

"Isn't it lucky this building is warded against Fiendfyre," Vagnof said matter-of-factly. "Feel better."

Harry nodded. He did feel better. With the release of the magic that had been building up inside him, so too could he release the restless feeling that had plagued him for so long.

"If you begin to feel restless again, come and cast a couple of powerful spells. That should do the trick," Vagnof said. He left quickly and abruptly.

* * *

 **Don't forget to review!**


	11. Thieving the Thief

**Chapter 10: Thieving the Thief**

Draco sat uneasily in his chair as the meeting was called to order. He glanced up at the other members, only to avert his eyes again after realizing that they were _all_ staring at him suspiciously. Vagnof sat beside him, as calm and collected as always.

"Does this make me an enemy of the cause now?" Draco muttered under his breath to Vagnof.

Vagnof smiled, "I think that ship sailed a long time ago."

The Order meeting began, and for a while they talked about things that Draco didn't understand and clearly wasn't supposed to. Finally, Kingsley turned to Vagnof.

"Is there anything at all you can tell us that may help in our quest to find the horcruxes?"

Vagnof shook his head, "Lord Voldemort's horcruxes are his most well-kept secret. He has not seen fit to tell me much about their locations."

'I have something," Draco spoke up. Everyone turned to him, and he tried to take pleasure in the attention as he used to. "He's given some of them to his Death Eaters to hide. He gave one to Father."

"Does that mean you might have some idea as to where the horcrux that your father has might be?" Kingsley asked.

Draco shrunk a little. "Not really. Father fell out of the Dark Lord's good standings a while ago. I was never told why, but I think Father lost one of Voldemort's horcruxes."

"Then it's useless," Tonks said, throwing up her hands. "The horcruxes have been our number one priority, and we've got nothing to show for it."

"They're our only hope of defeating You-Know-Who," Mad-Eye Moody said. "We must keep looking for however long it takes."

"But if these two of all people don't know anything about the horcruxes, then what hope is there?" Tonks demanded.

"If I may," Vagnof said, holding up his hands. "I must agree with Mr. Moody. The search for the horcruxes is a lost cause. They will simply take too long to track down, but also, continuing down this path will mean that Harry Potter will never be free."

"What's this got to do with me Godson?" Sirius demanded, sitting up in his chair.

Vagnof hesitated. "That night Voldemort tried to kill him as an infant, Voldemort intended to use Harry's death to create a horcrux. When the curse backfired, Lord Voldemort's soul was still ripped apart, and that piece of Voldemort's soul latched onto Harry. Harry is Voldemort's seventh horcrux. To destroy Voldemort is to destroy Harry, also."

The news wasn't as shocking to Draco as it probably should've been. He was just annoyed that Potter was _once again_ the topic of conversation. The rest of the room had descended into harrowed silence.

"Harry has a piece of _Voldemort_ inside him?" Sirius burst out. "How could he – What does he - Does he know?"

"I believe not," Vagnof replied simply. "He is of course aware of his connection with the Dark Lord, but has not guessed why."

Sirius shakily got to his feet, his chair scrapping backwards, and stumbled from the room. Remus rose and hurried after him. Those left behind glanced forlornly at each other.

"Is there a way to remove it," Arthur spoke up. "Without killing him?"

Vagnof sighed, "I have looked into it extensively, and there does not appear to be away. The soul is a part of him and may only be separated through death."

"So we need to come up with a new plan," Hermione said. Her voice was firm and steady. "There must be some other way to liberate the Dark Soldiers."

"There _is_ no other way," Mad Eye Moody said gruffly. "Those horcruxes are the only way to defeat him, and if that means we have to kill Harry Potter, then-"

"DON'T!" Ginny half stood in her seat and glared at Mad-Eye from beside Hermione. "Don't you _dare_ finish that sentence."

"We cannot allow mere sentiment to get in the way of the good of the Wizarding World!" Mad-Eye said. "If you two can't handle that, then you're not fit to be Order members."

"Wizards and Witches, please," Kingsley said over them. "Let's be civil about this. This is a moral dilemma we do not have the time for during this meeting, so I propose that we continue our efforts to search for the horcruxes, whole also looking for alternative paths. Vagnof, you were the one who suggested changing tac in the first place. Do you have any suggestions?"

"That's right," Mad-Eye scowled. "Ask the known Death Eater what he thinks we should do. Why don't we just walk down Diagon Alley with 'Mudblood' painted on our foreheads?"

"Mad-Eye, we've discussed this," Kingsley said stiffly, then turned to Vagnof. "You have our ears."

"I do have just one idea to venture," Vagnof said. "Voldemort's hold on the Wizarding World stems from his immense magical power, which breeds fear and paranoia among the rest of us. To topple his empire, we simply need to remove his power."

"You can't just go around removing people's magic. It's intrinsic to you, it can't be taken away," Tonks said.

Vagnof reached into his pocket and removed to small monkeys. "When these monkeys wrap themselves around your wrists, you lose all magical ability. The monkeys act as a sort of barrier through which your magic cannot pass. We may simply need to do what they do, only in a much more… permanent kind of way.

"I have recently been experimenting with ways to expanding an individual's magical core, and I believe I have stumbled upon a way to create a spell that will severely diminish a magical core until nothing remains."

"Preposterous!" Mad-Eye said.

"It sounds too good to be true," Tonks said with a sly grin.

"It just might be," Vagnof responded. "I still have much work to do to develop a chant that can be paired with the spell, but the real obstacle I face is the level of power that will be required to perform it. If the wizard is not powerful enough, the spell will kill them. We need someone with an intense amount."

"So, now we're on the hunt for someone with God-like amounts of power?"

"On the contrary," Vagnof said. "Harry Potter will do."

"Out of the question," Hermione spoke up. "You said it could kill him."

"Granger's right," Mad-Eye said. "Potter's is under Voldemort's thumb."

"Which means he'll be the first to jump at any opportunity to defeat him," Vagnof said. "Potter has quite recently gone through some quite traumatic experiences. He is all too ready for an opportunity like this."

"But how do we get to him?" Tonks asked. "We're been searching for the soldiers for just about as long as we've been searching for the horcruxes."

"Vagnof, couldn't you find a way to get to him?" Kingsley suggested. "You are a trusted Death Eater."

"That is a plausible idea," Vagnof conceded. "But this spell will require practice, and Potter may require some persuasion. I suggest we kidnap him."

There was a brief moment of silence.

"What?" Tonks said. Did Vagnof know about their kidnapping plans? The Order had abandoned the prospect after the existence of the runes had been revealed.

"I'm guessing that you already have plans to kidnap a soldier. I can simply nudge Potter in the right direction for you."

"But what about the runes you told us about?" Tonks said. "Voldemort will instantly know where he is and will be able to summon him back."

"I invented those runes," Vagnof said. "There are loopholes – leave them to me. Voldemort will have no idea that Harry's been stolen."

Slowly, the Order schemed and planned and set ideas in motion. A spark of hope seemed to catch the Order members, and blaze throughout the room. There was a light. A small glimmer of hope at the end of a long and sullen tunnel.

Draco sat through the meeting in silence, having very little to contribute. To be honest, he felt like a child who'd been allowed to sit at the adult's table preemptively.

When the meeting concluded, Vagnof and Draco stepped out into the hallway.

"Are we going back now?" Draco asked. He was itching to get away from everyone's suspicious glances.

"I'm afraid you will need to remain here, Draco. You're an enemy to the cause now, and need to be protected accordingly."

"But all of these people hate me!" Draco said.

Vagnof smiled, "So perhaps it's time you learned how to be likeable."

Draco scowled at him. Ginny Weasley stepped out of the meeting room. She turned her gaze to Draco and glowered at him.

"Malfoy," she said curtly.

"Weasley," Draco returned.

"You may have fooled the others, but I remember you from school. You're an elitist scumbag Pureblood and always will be."

The usual witty retorts rose to Draco's lips, but he stopped himself.

"I'm just trying to help," he said.

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "I doubt that."

Hermione stepped into the confrontation. "Leave Malfoy alone, Ginny. Be glad he's finally come to his senses," she said. She gave Draco an encouraging smile.

Draco blinked. "Um – yeah."

"So, have you heard anything about Harry and Ron?" Hermione asked suddenly. Draco realized her kindness would come at a price. "How are they?"

"Um," Draco said in a flustered way. "They're, ah, they're … swell." Swell? "I mean… they're… angry. And a little depressed. Angry and depressed."

"What Draco means," Vagnof stepped in. "Is that they're reacting to their current situation as well as can be expected. What matters is that we focus on liberating them."

Draco nodded hurriedly in agreement. Vagnof cast Draco one of is cautionary looks, and then swept away.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Voldemort sat poised in a leather armchair, gazing out the bay window of the manor to No-Man's Land, where a group of soldiers ran laps. Behind him, Harry appeared at the door, flanked by two Death Eaters.

"Come and sit by me, Harry," Voldemort said. He gestued to the leather chair opposite without looking away from the window. The Death Eaters left, but Harry did not move. Voldemort sighed. He held out his hand for Harry to see, revealing the pendant in his palm. "I'll even let you hold it."

Harry stared at pendant for a moment, then strolled across the room, snatched the token from Voldemort's hand, and sank into the opposite armchair. The sudden wave of relief and elation was so overwhelming that he had to close his eyes and savor it for a moment. When he opened them again, he found Voldemort watching him with those calculating eyes.

"I saw what you did to that soldier," Voldemort said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "You did quite a lot of damage to his face." Voldemort was smiling. "Quite ironic, don't you think? You killing a soldier. Should I start an uprising like you did? Set fire to the Training Rooms, perhaps?"

The Dark Lord was making fun of him.

"Only if I get to torture _you_ to within an inch of your life," Harry snapped. He stared out the window, watching the soldiers run round and round. He held the pendant tight in his hand and tried to think of anything other than that soldier's boy's red, broken face.

"My Death Eaters have been laying off on you for some time now," Voldemort said. "But I am growing impatient. Are you ready to end this little crisis of yours and get to work?"

Harry released a slow breath. He shifted his gaze from the window and stared right into Voldemort's red eyes.

"You tore," he spat. "My _soul._ In two."

"I gave you the gift of immortality," Voldemort returned easily.

Harry pressed himself back against the seat and turned to the window in disgust. He sat for a long moment in stony silence.

"I get it, I'm yours forever," Harry said, lifting up his sleeve and glancing at the black shackle. "I do what you tell me to, so tell me what you want so I can get back to my half-life of imprisonment."

"How mature of you, Harry. Here," he handed Harry an assignment scroll. "A lowlife swindler by the name of Mundungus Fletcher has been spotted. Vagnof has noticed him frequenting some Muggle dwelling. Go bring him in. Should be an easy enough assignment for you."

Harry stared down at the parchment.

"Go on," Voldemort said. Harry got to his feet. Before he could leave, Voldemort held out his hand expectantly. Harry stared at his spindly pale fingers.

"I'm keeping it," Harry said firmly, holding the pendant tighter. Voldemort's red eyes glanced lazily up to his. His gaze was patient. Expectant. He didn't need to bother with threats.

Harry held out his closed hand. It hovered an inch above Voldemort's. He swallowed, steeled himself, and let the pendant fall, severing the connection between the two shards of Harry's soul. Voldemort's fingers closed around the pendant.

"Remember, Harry," Voldemort said as he slipped the pendant back over his head. "This pendant will never leave my person. While I found it necessary to create it, there may come a day where I find it unnecessary to keep it."

Voldemort reached into his pocket and pulled out a basilisk fang. The same fang Harry had used to destroy Voldemort's locket. Harry's heart dropped into his stomach.

"You destroyed something of mine, didn't you?" Voldemort said. "Someday I may just decide to… return the favour." Voldemort held the Basilisk like a dagger, and scraped it along the crown of the lion's head. Harry couldn't breathe. "I want you to remember that if you ever have thoughts about defying me again."

Harry locked his jaw shut. He forced himself not to react. Forced down the beast that reared its angry head inside him.

"Now go on, bring me the Mundungus Fletcher."

For a moment Harry couldn't move. Everything inside screamed at him to tear his soul out of that miserable monster's hand. But instead he forced one foot in front of the other, and stalked from the room.

Harry appirated into a dark alley a block away from the house Mundungus was detected. He arrived next to an overflowing trash can. Harry picked it up and threw it against the wall. The thing made a terrible racket as it ricocheted off the wall and rolled for some distance, spewing rubbish all over the alley.

Harry stared at the wreckage.

Finally, he walked from the alleyway and headed in the direction for the house. The Muggle street was so ordinary that Harry was reminded of Pivet Drive. He wondered if the Dursleys ever wondered what had happened to him when he never returned at the Summer's break. Or if they cared. They probably threw a party.

He walked slowly to the location, taking silent refuge in the calm and ordinary Muggle world. He stopped in his advancement outside the house. He examined it for a long moment, realizing that he really didn't want to go in there and send some poor wizard to his death.

 _You really want to just stand here for the rest of your life?_ Hermione's voice said. Harry sighed and removed his wand from its holster. There were no wards around the exterior of the house, and it occurred to Harry that this was incredibly naive. He placed his hand on the doorknob, and then felt a familiar thrum of magic. He opened it, revealing a long, thin corridor. He held up one hand, trying to find the edge of the wards. It seemed to be forever one centimeter beyond his reach. He took one step in, still searching. Where was it? He could feel it all around him, but there didn't seem to be an edge.

Then he felt it. The fogginess creeping over his mind. He stopped dead and tried to back out of the house, but it was too late. He'd fallen into the trap. He tried to disappirate, but there was an Anti-Appiration ward here as well.

The dizziness settled in and tilted the world at crazy angles before his eyes. He felt himself collide with the floor. He fought to hold onto consciousness, but it blackness seeped in anyway. He heard footsteps, people's voices. Hermione's voice chanting _idiot_ over and over. Then it all went blank.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Harry had stopped just outside the entrance to the house.

"What's he doing?" Tonks hissed.

"He knows," Sirius said grimly.

They'd been wildly excited when they saw Harry Potter walking down the street. They were hidden in the house on the other side of the road. The house's occupants were sleeping soundly under Tonks' sleeping curses.

"He can't know. Just wait," Vagnof said.

Sure enough, Harry stepped over the threshold. Even from across the street, they could see Harry instantly become unsteady on his feet.

"Got him!" Sirius cried, jumping to his feet.

"Let's move," Tonks said.

The three hurried to remove the sleeping charms from the Muggle occupants and then sprinted across the road. Harry was on all fours, leaning heavily against the wall and desperately holding onto consciousness.

"He's still awake!" Sirius said. Tonks fired a spell. Harry finally collapsed on his side with his back to the wall and his limbs splayed out in front of him.

"Find the runes," Vagnof told Sirius and Tonks as he removed his wand and a pouch of red powder. Tonks and Sirius knelt beside Harry and pulled back his sleeves.

"Found them," Tonks said, running a finger over the blood-red runes etched into Harry's skin.

"What the-" Sirius began, staring down at the thick black shackle on Harry's wrist. He shifted the shackle, revealing the words _UNTIL THE FINAL PRICE_ etched into its surface. "What the _fuck_ is this?"

"Questions later," Vagnof said. He knelt beside Tonks with his wand out, adding additional lines to each of the runes on Harry's wrist, and dusting the open wounds with the red powder. The powder fizzling on the skin and closed the wound.

Sirius was still fretting angrily over the shackle. He fumbled for his wand and muttered, "Alohamora." The shackle glowed red Harry gave a half-conscious gasp of pain. Sirius swore under his breath. "Sorry, Harry."

"Maybe just leave the shackle be, for now," Vagnof suggested. "Come, let's get him to Grimmauld Place."

Sirius and Tonks seized Harry by the shoulders in preparation to disappirate.

"Come on, Harry," Sirius said. "Let's bring you home."

* * *

 **Thank you everyone who has reviewed so far - it means a lot!**


	12. Learned Helplessness

**Chapter 11: Learned Helplessness**

* * *

Harry woke up with the distinct feeling of being somewhere _other._ Not the Barracks. Not the Dungeons. Wherever he was, Harry could feel that he was somewhere inexplicably familiar. Maybe it was dim hue of the burgundy walls. Perhaps it was the faint smell of rot and dust.

Grimmauld Place.

He'd woken up, restrained against a chair, in one of Grimmauld Place's many rooms. A young woman with bright eyes and pink hair stood across from him, idly twirling her wand between her hands and biting her lip. When she realised Harry had stirred, she grinned at him.

"Hi, Harry!" Tonks said in a bright and chipper voice. "Did you have a good sleep?"

He found that it took a moment to process what she'd said. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"I've had worse," he said after a moment. He shook his head and tried to clear the fog over his brain.

She seemed to take his words as affirmation and pocketed her wand. She gestured to the room. "Do you recognise where you are, Harry? Do you remember it?" Tonks asked.

"What am I doing here?" Harry said. That question brought him into sharp focus.

Tonks' grin returned, and she said, "We kidnapped you, Harry. We took you back from Lord Voldemort."

Harry realised that he had known this from the moment he'd opened his eyes. That didn't mean he was ready to accept it.

"You… kidnapped _me_ … from Voldemort," he said, feeling each syllable on his lips, trying to quench the panic rising within him, once again.

"That's right!" Tonks said. "Welcome to freedom, my young friend."

Harry couldn't help releasing an ugly, stale huff of a laugh. " _Freedom,_ " he spluttered, and strained once against the chair. "You and I clearly had different ideas of _freedom_."

Tonks frowned at the restraints. "Well, I for one was against chaining you down like some kind of animal, but there's democracy for you. They just wanted to take precautions, considering -"

"Considering my status as a Dark Soldier," Harry finished. "Considering where I've been for the past three years? Considering the four people I've murdered!" – Harry scoffed – "And you decided to _kidnap_ me? As though this will help at _all_?"

Harry could feel the beast's fiery breath inside him, but his magic was not responding to its call as it usually did.

Tonks had her wand in her hand again. "We have a plan, Harry," she said firmly. "A way to bring Voldemort down, and –"

" _Bring him down?"_ Harry said incredulously. He thrashed harder against the restraints, trying to get his magic to respond. "Voldemort has won. The war is over. You all should have run the moment the Ministry fell!"

"We would never just run away and abandon you!" Tonks said, affronted.

"Well, YOU SHOULD HAVE!" Harry bellowed. "YOU SHOULD HAVE RUN WHILE YOU HAD THE CHANCE! NOW YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE, AND IT'LL PROBABLY BE ME THAT KILLS YOU!" Harry couldn't keep his voice from cracking. He swallowed hard. "Please – the damage hasn't been done yet. Just remove these restraints, and I'll be gone. I'll stall for as long as I can. You can all go to Australia or something. Anywhere other than here. It's too late for the Dark Soldiers, but not for you. Please."

Harry gazed at the woman with wide eyes. She returned his gaze with a look of fury in hers. Her hair turned deep crimson.

"We're not cowards," she said fiercely, eyes blazing. "I'm a Hufflepuff, which means I'm sticking around for the long-haul. Don't tell me Voldemort sucked all the Gryffindor out of you."

"You don't understand," Harry said desperately. "There is no fight anymore! He won! The Order of the Phoenix is like white continuing to shift around pieces after black has called Checkmate. There's nothing any of you can do, except save yourselves."

Tonks cocked her head in disbelief, and gave a little scoff. She took a long hard look at Harry Potter.

"So, you've given up," she scorned. Her voice had gone quiet and venomous. "The last hope and saviour of the Wizarding World now kneels obediently at the Dark Lord's feet, like a good little soldier boy. You call yourself a Gryffindor? You're a coward."

Those words cut deep. Harry's jaw clenched, and his hands curled into fists. "I do what I have to," he spat. "To keep my friends alive."

"Alive for what?" Tonks returned with derision. "To be a slave? To kill their family in cold blood? We're giving you a chance to save them from that life!"

"There is no fucking escape!" Harry hissed, straining against the chair. "Why can't you understand that?"

"Because _you've_ literally just escaped, and instead of thanking us for your freedom, you're throwing a tantrum."

Harry shook his head and leant back against the chair. He stared up at Tonks. How could he get her to understand? He twisted his arm underneath the restraints to expose his forearm.

"Look at the runes," he said, maintaining steady eye contact. He watched Tonks' eyes travel to his forearm. "The minute Voldemort realises I'm missing, he'll activate the middle one, and I'll go flying back to his side. Nothing can stop that. Not these restraints. Not all the wards on Grimmauld Place. Nothing."

Tonks looked at the runes, and to his utter shock, smirked at them. She raised her eyebrows at Harry. "How about _you_ look at them?"

Confused, Harry glanced at his forearm. He first noticed that the golden monkeys were around his wrists. That's why his magic wasn't responding to him. Where had the Order gotten these monkeys? He didn't have long to contemplate this, however, because he'd suddenly realised that the runes were gone. He looked closer and realised that the lines were still etched into his skin, just in pale pink colour, as though they had been deactivated.

"You should see the look on your face!" Tonks laughed. "This is your chance to save your friends, Harry. Help us revolt against Voldemort, knowing that you're free from his grip."

Harry couldn't take his eyes off faint runes. He'd tried everything to get those runes out of his skin. He'd conceded that it was impossible. Yet there they were. Voldemort had no way of knowing where Harry was, and no way of getting him back. Was he actually _free_? For one glorious moment, a spark of hope came to life inside him.

No sooner than it came, it was snuffed out by the thought of his horcrux sitting around Voldemort's neck, and the Dark Lord's threat to destroy it ringing in his ears. Harry shook his head and glanced bitterly up at Tonks, who was still grinning smugly down at him.

"You think those runes were the only sticks Voldemort beat me into submission with?" Harry glowered bitterly. "I'm not your saviour. The Boy-Who-Lived died the moment the wards fell around Hogwarts. Haven't you noticed my fucking red eyes? I belong to Voldemort now," Harry broke his gaze. The words pained him to say, but he had to make her understand. "He has something of mine – something I can never let go of, and therein he will always have me. I'm the Dark Lord's monster."

Tonks' expression turned grim. Harry couldn't look at her. He stared at the floor.

"I'm sorry," he said tightly. "I can't help you. Kidnap some other soldier. Remove their runes - they'll jump at any opportunity for freedom you give them. But not me – anyone but me."

Tonks crossed the threshold between them in three strides and struck him so hard his head snapped to the side and stars sparkled before his eyes.

"You're the _fucking Chosen One_ ," she hissed down at him. Harry glanced up at her with disdainful eyes. Harry opened his mouth the retort, only to be struck again. The chair rocked from the force. Harry took it mutely. Tonks seized the front of his overalls with wide eyes. "The Chosen One doesn't get to be this selfish! What about your friends, huh? What would they say if they heard you talking about betraying them?"

Harry thought of Ron. "They'd say it was about – bloody – time," he growled. "It's dog-eat-dog among us Dark Soldiers. What did you expect?"

Tonks' fury only seemed to grow more potent at Harry's words. She raised her hand again. The door suddenly burst open. Two wizards rushed into the room, restraining Tonks before she could strike Harry again.

"Tonks, this is not helping matters!" one of the wizards growled as Tonks regained her composure. Harry recognised him as Mad-Eye Moody. The other Wizard had his back turned.

"No, it's fine," Harry said scathingly. "I'm the Chosen One, remember!? That's all anyone sees when they look at me. A saviour. A weapon. Merlin forbid I ever have a free fucking thought. No – I exist to be commanded. _I obey; therefore, I am_. I'm at the will of all others! So go on, beat me into submission just like Voldemort!"

Harry could feel the cracks splintering wider in his brain. He found that he didn't care. Perhaps this would be what it finally took to drive him insane. He couldn't say he was sorry. The beast was flailing around inside him, desperate to be let out.

The wizard with his back to Harry suddenly turned around.

Vagnof.

The cracks grew larger.

"What -" Harry gasped. He narrowed his eyes. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I'm a spy, Harry," Vagnof said plainly. He turned to Tonks and Mad-Eye Moody. "Perhaps it would be best if we had a moment in private."

Mad-Eye took the hint and steered Tonks out of the room. The witch had gone red in the face and wouldn't meet Harry's eye. When the door clicked closed, Vagnof calmly moved to a desk against one corner, and picked up a glass ball Harry hadn't noticed. Vagnof ran his hand over it, and the glass ball swirled with blue energy before going clear again.

"I do hope you will forgive Miss. Tonks," Vagnof said. "Hope is a powerful emotion, especially when that hope is dashed." Harry watched Vagnof mutely as he took the chair from the desk, set it beside Harry, and sat down. "We were monitoring this room through the glass ball. Don't worry, it was just Mr. Moody and I watching. I'm sorry about using the Subicite Monkeys on you, but we were not sure how you would react, and we all agreed that it was better safe than-"

"What the fuck is going on?" Harry interrupted.

Vagnof gave him a fatherly smile. "I've teamed up with the Order of the Phoenix in order to help bring down Voldemort," Vagnof explained. "I loathe him as much as you do, Harry."

"I doubt that," Harry muttered. He watched Vagnof cautiously. He was not someone Harry would associate with the Order.

Vagnof gazed at him with grave eyes. "Harry, what he did to your soul was unforgivable, and I will spend the rest of my days begging repentance for being a part of that."

Harry furiously turned his gaze to the floor. What right did Vagnof have to apologise?

"So you of all people should know that trying to take me from Voldemort is a ridiculous idea," he said tightly.

The corner of Vagnof's mouth twitched. "On the contrary," he said. "I was the one who suggested specifically targeting you." Harry couldn't help glancing at him incredulously. "It's true. I have found a way to defeat him, Harry. Not by killing him, but by removing his power – his magical core."

Harry huffed and shook his head in disbelief. "So your plan is to give Voldemort a pair of his own monkeys?" Harry said.

"Not quite," Vagnof replied. "My plan is to give Voldemort something much more permanent. Those monkeys can be taken off quite simply, if you simply know what to do. No, no, in just the same way that your magical core was stretched and enlarged, Voldemort's core could be shrunk and diminished until there is simply nothing left."

The idea of a magic-less Voldemort was not unamusing. But this did not answer why he was here.

"What's this got to me?" Harry said slowly.

"I've formulated a spell to achieve this, but it requires an incredible amount of power – from a single source. It requires more magic than I have, or anyone in the Order has, for that matter." Vagnof turned to him gravely. "Only you, Harry. Only you have the power to cast the spell, and survive."

Harry continued to gaze at him for a moment, to ensure that Vagnof was being honest. Then his shoulders slumped a little, and he closed his eyes slowly. He felt inexplicably tired. A kind of exhaustion that was in the ache of his bones. Wasn't it fascinating how far a human mind could be pushed? And yet the universe keeps on pushing. Why did the world expect so much of him? Heavy hangs the wrist that bares the shackle.

Harry took a deep breath in, held it inside him, and released it. He thought inexplicably of what it might be like to go insane. It must be terribly relaxing to just retreat into yourself. To forget that the rest of the world exists. Would his memories come to haunt him? Would he spend his madness with Hermione whispering in his ear? No. He imagined that Voldemort would accompany every mad delusion.

Harry opened his eyes and stared up at the low arched ceiling.

"The minute I get close enough to him – the second he realises what I'm doing, he'll pull out my horcrux, and a basilisk fang," Harry said. The thought in itself was already maddening enough.

Vagnof gazed at him and said sadly, "You would really betray all your friends to save your soul?"

The beast roared its indignation in Harry's gut. He sat up and said, "I wouldn't be able to stop myself. It's like the Imperius Curse. It completely envelopes me – I have no control. I'll do whatever it takes. The thought of losing it - it's impossible to explain. I just know that I will never be able to stand the thought of losing it."

Vagnof sighed. "In that case, don't give him the chance to use it against you. Cast the spell when his back is turned. Don't let him see it coming. Then you can snatch your horcrux off his neck when he's akin to the Muggles he's always detested."

Harry couldn't keep himself from imagining it. An accidental smile crept onto his face.

"Harry – you still have your own free will, so I'm not going to force you into anything," Vagnof said. "If you want, I'll remove the restraints, obliviate you, and send you on your way back to Voldemort. But you should know that this may be our only chance – your only chance – your friends' only chance to be rid of him."

Harry imagined Voldemort's fall. He imagined the soldiers liberated from Gaunt Camp. Ron greeting his older brothers. Neville embracing his grandmother. Harry himself embracing Hermione. The thoughts made his insides twist with longing.

But the familiar feeling of longing – of craving – brought his horcrux back to mind. He imagined a basilisk fang being driven through his pendant, and for a moment could feel the pain of it ghost through him.

Was he prepared to lose his soul for his friends? To live out his days as half human? He already felt like a hollowed out soul when he was away from his horcrux. Did he really want to find out what it would feel like to have it destroyed completely. The thought made him shiver.

But A new though suddenly occurred to him.

What did it matter?

So what, if his horcrux was destroyed? He would endure the pain just as he had before. Just as he always did. He would be half a human, but he would also be mortal. His life would be in his own hands once again. There would be no horcruxes. There would be no runes. He truly would be free from Voldemort. Free. To end it all. What was life with only half a soul, anyway?

Yes.

If his horcrux was destroyed, he would take those moments before the Order could heave new plans onto his shoulders, before Voldemort had the chance to tie the chain back around his neck, and turn his wand on himself. He could just imagine the look on Voldemort's face.

Harry would die free.

"I'll do it."

* * *

 **We're beginning to work our way to the pointy end of the story. Harry's going to meet the others in the next chapter. It's not exactly going to be fluffy unicorns and rainbows, though.**


	13. Wicked Games

**Chapter 12: Wicked Games**

Draco stared disdainfully at the Polyjuice Potion that bubbled and frothed in its vial. Vagnof reached over and carefully let one black hair drop into the concoction, where it fizzled and disintegrated.

Draco took a steadying breath. He shifted uncomfortably in the scratchy black overalls Vagnof had given him, then he tipped his head back and swallowed the potion in one gulp. It burned his throat all the way down, and immediately he felt his body shift and change and distort into something else. Vagnof produced a mirror for Draco to look into, and Draco found Potter staring back at him. He was identical, right down to the scar on his forehead.

"Potter," Draco muttered under his breath. Vagnof handed him a black shackle. Draco felt the weight of it in his hands. "What do I do with this?"

"Put it around your left wrist," Vagnof said.

Draco gave Vagnof a disgusted look. Vagnof just raised his eyebrows at him expectantly. Draco sighed and clicked the device around the wrist.

"I already hate being Potter," he muttered.

"Then you're in for a wonderful time," Vagnof replied. He seized Draco's other wrist pressed his wand into his forearm so that three red runes appeared in his skin. "They're not real," Vagnof said at Draco's horrified expression. "But they'll convince anyone who happens to catch a glimpse of your forearm."

Vagnof stepped back and surveyed Draco. "You certainly _look_ like Harry," Vagnof said. "But you don't _feel_ like him."

"Excuse me?" Draco said.

"A good disguise goes beyond the appearance. You need to act more like Harry. You need to embody him."

Draco flared his nostrils. "Right. I'm a spoiled git who thinks he's better than everyone else! There – done."

"Is that really what you see when you look at Harry?" Vagnof asked.

No.

"Yes," Draco said.

Vagnof smiled. "You know what your problem is, Malfoy? You have no empathy."

"And let me guess," Draco scoffed. "Potter's got loads of the stuff. He probably reeks of it. Well, if he has it, I don't want any of it."

"You have a very strange relationship with Harry," Vagnof remarked. "We're not talking about him. We're talking about you. You have no ability to put yourself in the place of others. You're completely self-centred."

"And why would I want to put myself in the place of others?" Draco said, gesturing pointedly to the fake shackle.

Vagnof just smiled again and held out his arm. "Come on, we're running out of time. Maybe this mission will do you some good."

"Salazar help me," Draco muttered, and clutched Vagnof's forearm.

They disapparated and landed in the manor.

"Now remember. You must convince everyone that you are Harry. Especially the Death Eaters. If you must, tell Weasley, but try not to tell anyone else. At midnight, the wards on Harry's room should disappear. Make your way to the wards, where I will be waiting."

Vagnof paused, gazing at Draco. "You both are more alike than you think. Remember that."

Vagnof stepped back and disapparated. Draco stared at the space where he used to be. He steeled himself and walked through the door. Two Death Eaters playing Exploding Snap glanced up at him as he exited. One of them scoffed at him.

"Look at this. The first mission Potter's been on in months, and he comes back empty-handed," he said.

The other Death Eater smirked and said, "Useless," before turning back to their game.

Draco stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. The Death Eaters seemed uninterested in him, so Draco decided to walk away. He found his way to the entrance of the manor and surveyed Gaunt Institute. He'd never been before, but it was exactly how he'd imagined. Bleak and depressing. Soldiers were milling about, all heading in the direction of the Cafeteria, so Draco decided to follow. He kept his head down and nervously tugged on the sleeves of the overalls.

Weasley seemed to suddenly pop into existence beside him. "Lo, Scarface!" he said, thumping him on the shoulder "Did they finally send you on an assignment?"

"Yeah," Draco said. He hoped that was something Harry would say.

"Does this mean you'll be coming back to the Training Sessions?" Weasley said ardently. "I've been itching to duel with you ever since… you know."

Draco did not know.

"Yeah," he said again, unsure what else to say.

Weasley raised his eyebrows at him. "You alright there, Scarface? You're unusually – well, talkative."

Talkative? He'd said two words. Was Potter mute or something? Draco shrugged. He could feel his heart rate rising. It had been all of a minute and already he was blowing his own cover. Weasley seemed to accept his noncommittal shrug, however, and they walked on in silence. They entered the Cafeteria. A Death Eater loomed over them. Draco glanced up at him. The Death Eater seemed to take personal offence at his gaze.

"What are you looking at, Scarface?" the Death Eater growled.

Draco hurriedly averted his gaze. He took a bowl, and stared down in disgust at the craggy substance. He followed Ron to a table occupied by Longbotton, Winchester, and Finnigan. Draco sat in the only remaining spot.

Draco watched in disgust as the soldiers dug into the gruel. Draco tentatively picked up a bowl, staring down at the awful substance. He dipped the spoon in, held it up, and let the gruel slop back into the bowl. What was this shit?

Draco glanced up and realised that Weasley had been watching him. Weasley raised his eyebrows and smirked at him in an inquisitive kind of way.

"You right there, Harry?" Ron asked with a grin.

This was impossible. How was he supposed to respond? What would Potter do? Draco remembered what Vagnof had said. They were more alike than he thought. So how would he react?

"I can't eat this shit," Draco said in disgust, putting down his spoon.

He realised this was the wrong thing to say, because the soldiers around the table exchanged odd looks and Weasley only seemed to grow more incredulous.

Weasley narrowed his eyes at him, still grinning. "We know, Harry. I don't think I've seen you take a bite of the shit since you threw that bowl at the Death Eater's face."

He did what now? This was going terribly. Why hadn't Vagnof told him about anything that was actually going on in Potter's life? Draco had never thought to ask.

Weasley's smirk seemed to vanish at Draco's lack of response. "Harry…" he said slowly, with narrowed eyes. "Do you feel like having a go in the Cage?"

"The what?" Draco blurted before he could stop himself.

Weasley cocked his head and studied him closely. "How about we go and say hi to Colin Creevey?" Weasley watched Draco for a moment, then slammed down his spoon. "You're not Harry."

Weasley made to stand up, but Draco lunged across the table and pulled him back down, nervously glancing at the Death Eaters who had turned to stare at them.

"Okay, no – I'm not Potter," Draco hissed. "But if you blow my cover, the real Potter is dead."

Weasley glared at him but sat back down. The soldiers gazed at him suspiciously.

"Where's the real Harry?" Longbottom demanded. "What have you done with him?"

"He's fine," Draco said. "He's been kidnapped by the Order of the Phoenix."

"Your _joking_ ," Longbottom breathed with wide eyes. "How is that possible?"

"I think the more important question," Weasley interrupted. "Is who's replaced him."

Draco gulped. "I'm Draco."

The soldiers physically recoiled from him with exclamations of disgust.

" _Malfoy?_ " Weasley said, glaring at him harder than ever. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I'm a member of the Order," Draco hissed insistently. He glanced at the Death Eaters, but their attention had turned elsewhere.

" _You?"_ Winchester spat incredulously.

"Yes," Draco responded. What was so hard to believe about that? "I'm covering for Potter so that the Death Eaters don't realise he's missing. Something's going to happen tomorrow. Something that will change everything. But if the Death Eaters realise who I am, everything falls to pieces. You need to help me pretend to be Potter." The soldiers continued to gaze at him suspiciously. Draco let out a breath of frustration. "Will you please just tell me how to be Potter?"

The soldiers turned to each other, and seemed to come to an agreement.

"Well, for starters, you need to act about ten times more depressed," Winchester said.

"And angry," Finnigan added.

"Let's make it simple," Longbottom said. "Just don't talk much, look tired, and scowl at everyone – no one'll be able to tell the difference."

"And for Merlin's sake, stop looking so terrified," Weasley said.

"Okay," Draco said, trying to make his face go blank. Potter sounded like an angsty git. "I'm depressed, angry, tired, and practically mute."

"Nailed it," Weasley said, then got up from the table along with the other soldiers. Apparently, the meal had finished. "Come on, then."

Draco followed them out of the Cafeteria, trying his best to scowl at everyone. As they walked across the dirt expanse that was No-Man's Land, Winchester said to Weasley, "You know, I feel like a go in the Cage. You up to it?"

Weasley shrugged and said, "Nah, I don't…" but he trailed off with a sly look at Draco. "Actually, I think I will have a go in the Cage, but not with you, Dean." He raised his voice. "Oi, Potter. How about you and I have a go in the Cage?"

Every soldier within their vicinity turned to them.

"Are you insane?" a boy spluttered, with a hesitant glance at Draco.

Weasley smirked at Draco with a glint in his eye. "What do you say, Harry?"

Draco had no idea what they were talking about.

"Um-"

"He said yes!" Weasley shouted, punching the air.

"Do you really think that's the best idea, Weasley? Considering what happened?" a soldier said.

Winchester laughed at the soldier. "Relax. Potter always goes easy on Weasley," he said, thumping Draco on the shoulder. They talked as though Draco wasn't even there. Draco was beginning to panic. What in Salazar's name were these heathens talking about?

The soldiers marched through the wards to the barracks, and Draco followed them around behind the rows of Barracks to a ring of chicken wire that had been stuck into the dirt to create a cage.

"Weasley, what is going on?" Draco hissed at him under his breath.

Weasley ignored him and climbed over the chicken wire. He turned to Draco and held up his fists. "Come on, Potter!"

Draco blinked. He wanted him to fight? Like a Muggle? What barbarity was this? Had Voldemort driven them so far off the edge that they actually wanted to beat each other up for fun?

Was this something Potter did? The soldiers were gazing at him cautiously. As though he were about to explode at any moment. Draco assumed that Potter must be a good fighter to garner this level of – was that _fear_? Draco had no chance of convincing anyone he was Potter if he stepped into that ring. What was Weasley thinking?

"No thanks," Draco said.

"Ron, get out of the Cage," Longbottom said. "You should know better."

Weasley rolled his eyes at him. "Potter's not going to kill his best friend."

Kill? Was this a fight to the death?

Weasley turned his eyes to Draco and seemed to stare him down. "Potter also never says no to a go in the Cage," he said.

Draco gulped. It seemed he had no choice. Weasley was adamant. Draco cautiously climbed over the wire and gazing hesitantly at Weasley.

Weasley grinned at him, and advanced. Draco clumsily threw up his fists, but Ron was quick. Draco found himself in the dirt before he could process what had happened, gasping for the air that had been forced out of his lungs by Weasley's blow.

"Come on, Scarface," Weasley said down at him. "You don't give in this easily."

"Ron, stop it," Longbottom said from beyond the Cage. Weasley ignored him.

"Get up, Harry," he said.

"What do you want from me?" Draco spat scathingly from the dirt. He stumbled to his feet.

Weasley's gaze turned venomous, and he said quietly so that only Draco could hear, "You've been living a life of comfort and privilege while we've been _here_ " – he struck Draco on the jaw, sending him sprawling back on the dirt – "so I thought I might welcome you to the soldier's life," Ron spat down at him.

 _But I'm trying to make things right,_ Draco thought desperately as his vision spun in circles. He'd joined the Order of the Phoenix, for Salazar's sake. He was risking his _life_ to help them. How was this treatment fair?

Draco got to his feet, conscious of the soldiers watching him. "You think I've had it so easy?" Draco hissed. Weasley just raised his eyebrow. Draco lifted his fists, the fake shackle swinging from his wrist. "There's more than one kind of imprisonment."

Draco swung a punch, but Weasley neatly ducked underneath it and delivered another blow to Draco's torso. Draco gasped, but managed to keep his footing. Ron jumped back on the balls of his feet. He squared hit shoulders as though he would give Draco some kind of retort. Instead, he gave Draco a seething look, and then advanced on him again. Draco backed up, raising his fists. Weasley raised his fist. Draco braced himself.

Weasley's head suddenly snapped to the side as a fist collided with his jaw from nowhere.

"What the fuck?" Ron exclaimed at Longbottom, clutching his face.

Longbottom massaged his wrist and gave Weasley a seething look.

"You should know better, Ron," Longbottom said, and glanced cautiously at the watching soldiers. "Five more minutes and we all know what would have happened," he said with a pointed look at Draco. "Come on," he said. Draco followed Longbottom over the chicken wire and they pushed past the onlooking soldiers.

"Um – thanks," Draco said once they'd walked out of earshot. The soldiers begun to shout and holler. Draco turned back to them and saw that Winchester had just entered the Cage to face off with Ron.

Draco gingerly put a hand to his bruised jaw. "Is this really what you guys do in your free time?"

"There's a lot of pent-up rage around here," Longbottom said blankly. He did not turn back to the Cage, instead choosing to stare out beyond the wards to the rest of the camp.

Draco gazed at him sceptically. "Do you?"

Longbottom shrugged. "I've never been a violent person. I don't see what it accomplishes."

"Does Potter?"

Longbottom smiled sadly. "Yeah, I guess."

"What was Weasley talking about? That Potter wouldn't kill his friend?" Draco asked.

Longbottom grew uncomfortable. He turned around to watch the soldiers shouting and jeering. "Harry may have killed a soldier in a fight in the cage a little while ago," he said hesitantly.

"He _what_?" Draco gasped incredulously. Golden boy Potter?

"He didn't mean to!" Longbottom said defensively. "He'd been gone for the weeks beforehand. Voldemort did something to him. When he came back, he demanded to have a go in the Cage with someone, and then… he just kept on punching. It was like he wasn't there in the head. He kept calling the soldier a monster. It's like he's become less… human."

Draco shivered. He suddenly had the distinct feeling that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to kidnap Potter. "What did Voldemort do to him?" Draco asked.

Longbottom just shrugged noncommittally and changed the subject. "So what's this big thing that's going to happen tomorrow?"

"Voldemort's Fall," Draco said. Neville looked as though he wanted to question him further but decided not to. They stood there in silence, watching the brawl. After a while, it became too dark to fight, and the soldiers began to retire to the Barracks.

"Come on, I'll show you to Harry's room," Longbottom said.

Draco followed him into the thin corridor of the closest Barrack. It was barely wide enough to fit both of them shoulder to shoulder. Neville subtly gestured to a doorway with a glowing blue ward over it. Draco assumed that this must be Harry's room, and stepped through. He found himself in a small room containing only a bed and a barred window. Harry's bed was worn and well used. A thinning blanket and a pillow had both been cast onto the floor, where they lay in two sad, screwed-up lumps. Draco was struck by how lonely it felt.

He turned to the ward over the door. He touched his hand to it and gasped at the shock of pain that ran through his body.

He stepped away from the ward and tentatively sat down on Harry's bed. He gazed out the window and could just make out the faint stars glittering above him. Draco let out a breath. Now he just had to wait until midnight.

* * *

 **So I lied at the end of the last chapter. I forgot about Draco's little expedition into Gaunt Camp. Next chapter, Harry gets to reunite.**


	14. Familiar Faces, Worn out Places

**Chapter 13: Familiar Faces, Worn out Places**

* * *

Vagnof removed the restraints, but not the monkeys. Harry would have requested that he do so, but he'd already walked across the room and opened the door. Harry followed him into an adjoining room where Sirius, Remus, Hermione, Mad-Eye Moody, and Tonks all jumped to their feet.

"He's agreed to everything," Vagnof declared.

And Harry was already regretting it. When he had agreed, he had not anticipated meeting these people as well. This was far too much. These people remembered a different Harry. What would happen when they realised they'd kidnapped a monster?

Sirius was the first to step forward. He was healthier than Harry remembered, but still gaunt and skinny. He gazed at Harry with the hopeful hunger of a man on a desert island. Sirius uttered Harry's name softly, reverently, as though he took sustenance from just saying those two syllables. Sirius transformed his name into a spell.

Sirius grinned suddenly, and opened his arms wide for an embrace. Harry's heart dropped into his stomach. He hastily threw up his arms and held Sirius at arm's length before he could be suffocated by the love he didn't deserve.

"No," Harry murmured. He stared at his Godfather with wide eyes and shook his head. He forced his voice to work. "No hugs. No reunions."

Sirius furrowed his brows. "But, Harry-"

"I tried to kill you!" Harry hissed. He pushed Sirius away from him and stepped hurriedly backward. "Don't make me pretend I'm not what I am. A monster."

"Harry!" Hermione stepped forwards. "We know that Voldemort had forced you to do all these terrible things. We forgive you!"

Her voice was different, compared to the one in Harry's head. Everything about her was different. She was taller and more adult than Harry ever could have imagined. She looked strong, but also sad. Her sad gaze made Harry's heart clench.

"Look around, Harry," Sirius said. "You're home. We're going to bring the others home, too. We're never let him take you from us again."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," Harry snapped. The shackle around his wrist had never felt so heavy. "There's no proof this spell will actually work – in which case, no one is free. Least of all, me. For now, we focus on the task at hand, and nothing else."

The truth was, Harry could not stand the thought of getting close to these people, only to be torn away from them again. And it would be worse the second time, because he would know just how close he'd been to getting them back. No. He would not make that mistake. He would keep them at arm's length.

"But Harry," Hermione said earnestly. "If the spell doesn't work, then this might be our only chance-"

"I said _no_ ," Harry hissed venomously. If the monkeys hadn't been around his wrists, a burst of magic would have emanated from his hands. He gazed down at the monkeys and shoved his wrists in Vagnof's direction. "Get these rodents off me."

"I think not," Vagnof said slowly. "The spell in question will require every ounce of magic inside you. Best not to waste it. The Subicite Monkeys will help you save up all the magic inside you."

Harry glared at Vagnof. "I would _prefer_ ," he said tightly. "You take them off."

The old wizard levelly returned the soldier's furious gaze. For a moment, a battle of wills seemed to transpire between the two. Vagnof gestured to the door.

"Since you don't want to reunite with your friends, how about we go somewhere private, and I'll teach you this spell?" Vagnof said.

Harry recognised Vagnof's thinly-veiled suggestion for what it was. He wanted these monkeys off, but he also wanted to get out of this room of people he didn't deserve. Harry glanced at the door, then at the occupants. Sirius met his gaze, looking as though he wanted to say a thousand words, but said nothing. Hermione bit her lip and peered at him with that sad look of hers. Remus, who had been silent this entire time, gave Harry a small smile. It struck Harry as an understanding smile. An accepting smile. An encouraging smile. Harry broke his gaze and saw Mad-Eye Moddy at the back of the room with his usual gruff expression, and Tonks, who had turned her gaze to the window.

Harry mutely turned away from the occupants and strolled through the door. Vagnof followed behind and ushered him up several flights of stairs, into a room where a clear space in the centre of the room had been cleared. The walls were lined with books, with one large bay windows with two emerald chairs poised in front of it. The books looked ancient, with thick, faded covers and cracked spines. Soft evening sunlight shone into the room from the window, lighting up all the specks of dust in the air.

Vagnof shut the door behind Harry, and for a moment they stared at each other in silence.

"Do you really want to push the Order away like that?" Vagnof asked finally.

"It's better than the alternative," Harry asserted without making eye contact.

Vagnof sighed at him. "You know, if all goes well tomorrow, you're going to have to drop this soldier's mentality."

Harry glanced up at him, eyebrows raised. "Tomorrow?"

"The Order is planning an attack on Diagon Alley," Vagnof said. "Hopefully, we'll create a commotion large enough for Voldemort to summon his entire arsenal of Death Eaters and Dark Soldiers. It is then that you will case the spell. We will make it as public as possible so that everyone witnesses the Dark Lord's downfall."

" _Tomorrow?_ " Harry repeated. "The Death Eaters will have noticed that I'm missing by now."

"Do not worry about the Death Eaters. They will not know that you have gone. Draco Malfoy will be covering for you."

Harry's voice rose several octaves. " _What?"_

Vagnof smiled. "Mr. Malfoy is now an Order member, Harry. He is at Gaunt Camp right now, disguised as you."

"Bullshit," Harry said. "Draco Malfoy is a slimy, arrogant, Slytherin egomaniac."

"And yet, he is working for the Order now," Vagnof returned. "Do not worry about Malfoy. You should be worrying about this spell. The incantation is long and complicated, so you must ensure that Voldemort is otherwise occupied when you cast it. Do not give him a chance to manipulate you."

Harry nodded resolutely. Vagnof set to work teaching Harry the spell. The incantation was indeed longer than any spell Harry had dealt with before. They worked at it for several hours, until well after the night had truly set in. Eventually, Vagnof became satisfied with Harry's work.

"There are other matters I have yet to contend, so I will leave you here," Vagnof said. "Keep practicing – but do try to get some rest also."

Vagnof moved toward the door but paused and turned back to him. He lifted his hands, and the monkeys leapt off Harry's wrists and into the palm of his hand.

"I owe you an apology, Harry," he said as he pocketed the monkeys. "I invented the runes on your forearm. I clasped that shackle around your wrist. I cast that Entrancement on your magical core. But the thing I feel perhaps the guiltiest about is what I did to your soul. Of all the things for a human being to go through, I cannot imagine anything worse than what I helped Voldemort do to you. I will spend the rest of my days trying to make it up to you. I don't think I ever will, but for what it's worth, I am deeply sorry."

Harry didn't reply. He had nothing to say. Vagnof gazed at him for a moment longer and then strolled slowly through the door. Vagnof made his way down the flights of stairs, and bumped into Hermione going the opposite direction. Two plates of Mrs. Weasley's cooking hovered up and down behind her.

"Miss. Granger!" Vagnof said. "Just the person I was looking for."

"Hello Vagnof," Hermione said. "I was on my way to see Harry – it that okay?"

"Yes, of course. I imagine he will be quite hungry," Vagnof said with a nod to the plates of food. Vagnof fished out the monkeys from his pocket. "I wanted to give you these."

"The monkeys?" Hermione questioned as Vagnof placed them in her open hand.

"You know, of course, that they restrict the flow of magic. I want you to have them because I fear Harry may need them again one day."

"It seemed like he hated them," Hermione said.

"Only because Voldemort had used them against him so many times," Vagnof said. He hesitated before continuing. "Harry's magical core has been artificially enlarged. At times, he holds more magic inside him than his body can handle, causing the magical to erupt from him in uncontrollable bursts. It can be quite a painful experience for him. It can be prevented so long as he maintains a large amount of magical exertion, but Harry may be free tomorrow. I doubt he will take very good care of himself after that.

"You must help him, Miss. Granger. If you must, use the monkeys on him. He may hate you for it, but it will prevent him from destroying everything in his vicinity."

Hermione nodded, looking slightly frightened. "Thank you, Vagnof, for everything you've done."

Vagnof held up a hand and shook his head. "I've caused for more damage in my life than good, Miss. Granger. Far more."

Vagnof continued down the arduous flights of stairs, and made his way out of Grimmauld Place. He apparated to a grassy spot that lay just beyond a blade of trees. He turned and found Gaunt Institute laid out before him, warped and flickering behind a magical ward. Draco Malfoy disguised as Harry Potter stood just beyond the wards, giving him a childishly haughty look. Even in the darkness, Vagnof could make out a nasty bruise blossoming along his jawline.

"Are you alright?" Vagnof asked.

"Can we go home, please?" Draco said impatiently.

Vagnof pressed his hand to the wards. The flickering magic parted around his fingers, allowing a large enough gap for Draco to crawl through. Draco grasped Vagnof's forearm and the disapparated.

"How did you go?" Vagnof asked once they had made it back to Grimmauld Place.

"I had a great time!" Draco said scathingly. "Weasley and his cronies forced the truth out of me, and then he beat me up like a bloody Muggle."

Vagnof studied the bruise on Draco's jaw. "That's nothing a little magic can't fix."

Draco gazed around. "Where is everyone? Isn't Potter supposed to be here?"

"Potter is upstairs. Everyone else is preparing for tomorrow."

Vagnof moved to the fireplace. "Where are you going?" Draco demanded.

"Your day's work may be over, but mine is just beginning," Vagnof said with a smile. He muttered a name, threw down a handful of Floo Powder, and vanished in a flare of green smoke. He arrived in the Atrium of the Ministry. It had been transformed into a sea of green and silver, with a golden statue of the Dark Lord himself in the centre. He stood upon a stone slate held up by the half-naked forms of anguished men and women.

Vagnof gazed at the statue and not for the first time admonished himself for being such a fool. In his country, there was no good and evil. Magic was amoral, and therefore, it was celebrated in all its forms. Vagnof did not recognises the darkness that lay in Voldemort. Vagnof had believed he would be doing good when he'd chosen to follow this powerful and ambitious wizard back to England. He could never have imagined what lay in store for him. By the time he recognised Voldemort's true evil, it was already too late.

Vagnof made his way through the maze of corridors until he found the Minister's office.

If possible, Lord Voldemort was even more terrifying when he was asleep. At least in his waking hours he walked and talked as though he were human, but in sleep, he looked like a snake and nothing else. He lay dozing in his self-crafted throne, ever dignified even in sleep.

Vagnof spotted Harry's horcrux sitting against Voldemort's chest. Carefully, quietly, Vagnof approached the Dark Lord. He removed his wand from its holster and cast a Revelio charm on the pendant. It revealed nothing. How strange that Voldemort would be so arrogant as to leave it unguarded.

He reached one hand out, listening intently to the rhythm of Voldemort's breathing. His fingers were an inch away from the horcrux when Voldemort's breath hitched. Vagnof froze, but Voldemort continued to slumber. Vagnof clutched the pendant.

The moment his fingers brushed against the lion's mane, Vagnof realised his mistake. A jolt of magical energy ran through him. He cried out in pain as his hand was forcefully dispelled from the locket. Voldemort's eyes flashed open. The Dark Lord jumped to his feet as Vagnof fell backward onto the floor.

Vagnof tried to make his protesting limbs work, but he was paralysed and losing consciousness. Voldemort smiled down at him, clutching the pendant in one hand. With the other, he raised his wand and pointed it right between Vagnof's eyes.

"I'd wondered how long it would take," Voldemort hissed, and said the words.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Hermione tentatively opened the door. Harry was sitting by the bay window, fiddling with something thick and black around his wrist. At the sound of the door's squeal, Harry turned his head to Hermione and hastily pulled down his sleeve.

"Hi, Harry," Hermione said nervously. "I brought some food."

She stepped into the room, allowing the two floating dishes to bob in after her. She grabbed hold of them. Harry watched her approach with weary eyes. Hermione handed her a plate. He accepted it in silence and stared down at the plate heaped high with roast chicken, potatoes, and vegetables.

Hermione sat beside him. "Aren't you hungry?" she asked, watching Harry stare at the food.

"Did Mrs. Weasley cook this?" Harry asked. His voice was low and rough like gravel.

"Yes," Hermione said. Hermione's heart glowed at the sight of a small smile that crept onto Harry's lips. They lapsed into silence, but Hermione desperately wanted to keep the conversation going.

"Why don't you come and join us downstairs for dinner?" Hermione said earnestly. "I know Sirius would love to-"

"No," Harry said, and Hermione fell silent. She tugged nervously at her curls. She'd changed her appearance back to normal when they'd decided to kidnap Harry. She wanted him to recognize her. She remembered being at the Fall of Ministry and spotting Ron. She'd stood stock still, holding her breath, waiting for her friend to recognize her, but his eyes had slid right over her. He hadn't seen Hermione. He'd seen a blonde girl who wasn't worth the fight.

Hermione gazed at Harry. His expression terrified her. His brow seemed to be permanently creased, hovering pessimistically over two set, murky eyes. His gaze had a hardened, hollow quality to it. As though he were not looking at long-lost friend, but at a stranger. It struck Hermione that he was a stranger, too. Who was this boy? She could barely see the Harry she remembered in him. The boy in front of her was too tall. To lean. Too angry.

The door opened with a sudden and pervasive bang. Harry was on his feet in an instant, spilling mashed potatoes and vegetables across the floor. A crackle of magical energy burst from his hands, but he contained it by curling his hands into fists.

In the doorway, another Harry stood, with his hand still pressed on the door and a purple bruise forming on his jaw, glaring at his counterpart.

"Your friends are a bunch of fucking savages!" Harry's duplicate growled. "Do you actually spend your free time beating each other up?"

The real Harry gazed at himself and narrowed his eyes. " _Malfoy_?" he said incredulously.

"Yes, _Malfoy_ ," Draco hissed. "What is wrong with you people? Did you actually _kill_ someone!?"

The beast roared in Harry's ears. He launched himself across the room and shoved Draco into the bookcase. Draco yelped when his shoulder collided awkwardly with a shelf edge.

"Harry!" Hermione gasped. She jumped to her feet, but had no idea what to do next.

Harry gripped Draco by the front of his collar and hauled him back up, pinning him against the wall. Harry stared into his own murky, green eyes. The eyes of a monster.

"You may have them all fooled," Harry hissed. "But I know what you are." Harry raised his fist, and let it collide with the monster's nose with all his strength. Harry stepped back and turned away. He stopped short. Hermione stood staring at him with wide eyes, and in the doorway, Sirius and Remus gazed at him with identical looks of abject horror.

Harry glanced behind him, where Draco had fallen to the floor, groaning and gingerly clutching his hands to a nose that was gushing blood onto the floor.

Harry turned back to the others. He saw their disbelief. Their confusion. Their fear. Now they saw him. Not as they boy they remembered, but the boy he had become. Good.

Harry turned to Hermione. Her expression terrified him. There was far too much sadness. Harry noticed that she was staring at his wrist, and Harry followed her gaze down to the shackle around his wrist. He remembered the first thing she'd said to him. Something about forgiving him for the things he'd done. He found that now he had an answer.

Still staring at the shackle, he said quietly, "There's no forgiveness for the monster that kills because it's the only thing he knows how to do."

* * *

 **Getting to the pointy end of the story, now. I've been trying to actually put in some deeper meanings and all that, while at the same time not to be ridiculously cliche. Let me know what you think! I'm craving reviews at the moment.**


	15. Lemon Juice

**Chapter 14: Lemon Juice**

Harry was beginning to worry. He hadn't seen Vagnof since the night before. What if he'd been working for Voldemort after all? What if this ludicrous spell was just some elaborate, mean-spirited hoax? If it was, if was far too late now.

Harry crouched in one of the numerous abandoned shopfronts along Diagon Alley, peering out between the slats of the boarded windows. Harry hadn't been to Diagon Alley since his days at Hogwarts. It had changed. Up one end of Diagon Alley, the sight of a three-storey orange shop emblazoned with the words: Weasley's Wizard Wheezes made Harry smile. The shop was bright and rebelliously welcoming. Harry's smile disappeared, though, when he spotted a large statue of Lord Voldemort himself situated in front of it, in the centre of the street. There were only a handful of shoppers, and they went about their business quickly and quietly. Any moment, the Order of the Phoenix and every witch or wizard they'd convinced to fight would appear and begin to wreak havoc.

"What are you going to do if the spell goes wrong?" Draco asked.

Harry tried hard not to feel irritated at Malfoy's presence. He sat beneath the window Harry was peering through, leaning against the wall and twirling his wand in his hands.

"I'm going to throw my wand away and punch Voldemort in the face," Harry muttered.

Draco huffed. "That does seem to be your signature move," he said, touching a hand to his nose. His injuries had been healed completely by Remus, but what Remus couldn't heal was his pride.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked with barely-concealed contempt.

Draco rolled his eyes. "They told us to wait here until the fighting began. I would have thought by now you'd know how to remember instructions."

Harry glared at him. Draco had such a punch-able attitude. "I _meant,_ why are you with the Order?"

Draco went silent for a moment. "You want to know the truth?" he asked. "Snape convinced me."

"I thought Snape was dead."

"He is," Draco said. "But I've been sort of looking into his life. Did you know that Snape's boggart was you dead?"

Harry gave Draco a startled look and gave him an incredulous smirk. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Draco returned his smirk. "Yeah, that's about the same reaction I had," he said, then grew serious. "I'm pretty sure Snape was actually a spy for Dumbledore, but got revealed during the Fall of Hogwarts, and that's why he was murdered."

Harry remembered that night, where Snape urged Harry to come with him in the Common Room. He'd been so baffled that a Death Eater had apparently decided to kill Snape just like that. Harry hadn't thought much about it since, but could it be possible that Snape was actually trying to protect him? Surely not.

"That's ridiculous," Harry said.

"I think he was in love with your mum," Draco said. "I found some of Snape's stuff from when he was a student at Hogwarts. I think her death is what made him switch sides from Voldemort to Dumbledore. Maybe he made some sort of vow about protecting you to honour her memory. That's why his boggart is you dead, because it would mean that he failed his promise."

Harry gave Draco a disgusted look. "But he hated me."

Draco shrugged and said, "Because you were a constant reminder of what he'd lost."

Harry stared at Draco for a long, hard moment. Was Draco actually being sincere? He'd never in his life heard Draco say something so profound or sensitive. The idea of Snape loving Lily seemed ridiculous to Harry, but he had to admit, on some level, it made sense. What didn't make sense was Draco's decision to tell him. Harry gazed at Draco and realised that he wasn't the arrogant little elitist he'd been at Hogwarts.

"You've changed," Harry said.

Draco glanced up at him, opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again and turned away. Harry turned his gaze back to the window. There were a lot more wizards and witches on the street now. Harry guessed that they were Order members in disguise.

His scar suddenly flared white hot like a whip to wet skin. Harry gasped and pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead.

Draco watched him without moving. "Does this mean Voldemort knows you're missing?"

"Mhm," was all Harry could manage. He forced himself to concentrate, and stared out the window. He spotted Tonks, dressed in elaborate purple battle robes. She strode boldly down the centre of the street until she stood in front of Voldemort's statue. She raised her wand, and a jet of orange light erupted from her wand, toppling the statue onto its side. The shoppers turned to her in fright. Tonks clambered onto the statue and pressed her wand to her neck.

"Mudbloods! Halfbloods! Blood Traitors!" she yelled, her amplified voice echoing around the street. "We will not be forced from our homes. We will not give up our children to slavery! We will not run away and let Voldemort poison the world! Today, we take back what is ours!"

The street erupted. Order members revealed themselves amongst the crowd, and jets of light began to fly this way and that. Almost immediately, masked Death Eaters began to arrive in the dozens. The air rose with the sounds of battle.

"Where are the Dark Soldiers?" Draco asked, anxiously peering out at the street beside Harry.

"They're coming," Harry said. He imagined the Death Eaters frantically forcing the soldiers into their masks and battle robes.

Sure enough, a moment later, the Dark Soldiers arrived all at once as a sea of black-clad boys. They immediately began to fight the Order members with their calm precision. Looking through the eyes of an outsider, Harry could understand how unsettling the Dark Soldiers truly were. There was no way to distinguish one from the other. They were an army of mindless killers.

The top window of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes suddenly shattered as Fred and George Weasley burst from the shopfront on broomsticks. They yelled and whooped and performed summersaults over the fighters. They flew over the Dark Soldiers and drenched them in a curiously glistening liquid substance. The liquid acted like acid and melted away they Dark Soldiers' masks without harming them.

The Order members cheered, but the Dark Soldiers continued to fight despite being clearly recognisable. The Order members became confused and bewildered by the soldiers' behaviour, and suddenly found themselves on the offensive. Just like that, the Dark Army was winning, and the Order was quickly becoming outnumbered.

Lucius Malfoy suddenly came into their line of sight, and Draco drew in a sharp breath. As they watched, Lucius sent a man hurtling into a wall, and crucioed him one ground. The man's cries rose above the chaos of the battle.

"Excuse me," Draco said, and charged out the door.

Harry grimly watched him go. His scar suddenly flared hot, and there was Voldemort. He hovered above the fighters in a cloud of black dust, gazing furiously down at the battlers.

"Where are you, Potter?" Voldemort's amplified voice rang in Harry's ears. "I know you're here, little runt! Show yourself!"

Harry's heart dropped into his stomach. So much for catching Voldemort by surprise. He saw the pendant swinging from Voldemort's neck. Harry tried to take a steadying breath, but his nerves were getting the better of him. How was he supposed to do this? There was no way Harry would be able to catch Voldemort unaware. Harry felt like he was going to be sick. Harry forced himself to think of his friends. He would do this for them.

Harry walked out the door, keeping his eyes firmly on Voldemort. He tried to keep the image of his friends in his mind. They would keep him strong. They wouldn't let him succumb to the need for a complete soul. Voldemort had his back to Harry. Perfect. Maybe this could work.

Through the battle, a figure suddenly emerged to stand furiously before Voldemort. Sirius Black raised his wand to the Dark Lord with reckless fury glistening in his eyes. Voldemort lowered himself to the ground, and suddenly Harry was watching his Godfather lose a battle with the Dark Lord.

A cutting curse sliced into Sirius's leg, splattering blood onto the stones. Harry lost all thoughts of his mission. A second curse pummelled into Sirius' torso, blasting him into the air, writhing and twisting, until he landed harshly on the cobbled stones.

With a uncomprehending and reflexive scream, Harry hurled a curse at Voldemort. The Dark Lord blocked the curse and grinned at Harry. Hermione's voice chanted _stupid, stupid, stupid,_ in the back of his head.

"Don't disappoint me, Potter," Voldemort laughed. "I told you already – if I ever saw Black again, I'd kill him myself. I'm going to keep my promise."

Harry ducked under a Protego and returned a flurry of curses. "We'll see about that," he snarled.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Draco stepped between the writhing man and his father.

"My son," Lucius drawled. "How nice of you to show yourself. Where have you been?"

Draco flicked his wand, and Lucius ducked out of the way of his Jelly-Legs Curse at the last moment.

"What are you doing?" Lucius hissed, cautiously raising his wand against his son.

Draco smirked. "Choosing a side," he said. He stalked up close to his father until they stood eye to eye. "I've recently discovered that everything you've taught me has been a lie. We are not better than the Muggles. We all love and hate and kill just the same."

Lucius laughed in Draco's face. "Do you really believe that, my foolish son? A Muggle is inferior for the simple fact that they have not been gifted with even a drop of magic."

Draco raised his hand and curled it into a fist. He gazed at his knuckles. "The Muggles may not have magic, but they still kill each other just fine. Here – I'll show you."

And Draco Malfoy proceeded to punch his Father in the face, just as Harry had taught him.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Ginny ducked into an abandoned shop to catch her breath. She glanced hopelessly out at the battle. Mad-Eye Moody was taking on three death Eaters at once. Hermione was simultaneously dueling and pleading with Neville Longbottom. Draco Malfoy was dueling his father. Harry Potter was dueling Voldemort. The Dark Soldiers were still battling the Order.

They needed the Dark Soldiers to switch sides, and Ginny knew exactly what she had to do. She ran across the battleground to the toppled statue and clambered atop it.

"Dark Soldiers!" she yelled, taking delight in the way her voice boomed across the Alley. She felt powerful and important. "Can't you see that you're all fighting a causeless battle? Look around you! You are fighting against your own kin! Now is the only chance at freedom you will get. Harry Potter fights against Voldemort as we speak! All is not lost. Forget the runes around your wrist. It's time to fight back against those who forced you into a life of slavery!" Ginny found Ron in the crowd. She met his eye. "It's time to come home," she said.

Ginny watched Ron's expression change. He turned to the closest Death Eater and released a fury of curses, and the other soldiers followed behind. Suddenly the Death Eaters found themselves fighting two armies. Ginny couldn't believe it had worked. She let out a delirious laugh and jumped from the statue. She fought her way through the crowd to Ron. She jumped in beside him, and brother and sister fought as one.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Twice, Harry had tried to cast the spell, but the incantation was long, and he kept having to interrupt his incantation to defend himself. Voldemort spread his hands out wide, blowing the fighters closest to them away like the opposite side of a magnet. A magnificent blue ward rose up around Harry and Voldemort so that they were trapped inside. The battle around them began to halt as Voldemort's words boomed across the street.

"What is this foolish behaviour, Potter?" Voldemort hissed. "You know better than anyone that you cannot defeat me."

"I'll take my chances," Harry said boldly. This was not good. He was supposed to be catching Voldemort by surprise. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._

"Did you do all this, Harry?" Voldemort gestured to the battle around them. "I suppose I should thank you for bringing all the Blood Traitors and Muggleborns out of hiding."

"Everything ends today, Voldemort," Harry said coldly. "Winner takes it all."

Voldemort laughed. "I already have it all, Harry. Including you."

Harry hurled a Confringo at Voldemort in anger. "I will _never_ bow down to you again. You'll have to kill me."

Voldemort cocked his serpentine head at Harry for a moment, and seemed to come to a decision. "I can't do that, Harry," he said slowly. "Because to do so would be destroy myself also. We are more closely connected than any other two wizards in history, you and I."

"We are nothing alike!" Harry snarled.

"I don't mean that," Voldemort said. "Haven't you ever wondered why your scar hurts whenever I am near? Why you can feel it when I am angry? Why you can speak to snakes? It's because you hold a part of me within yourself."

"What are you talking about?" Harry said, unease began to turn his stomach.

"You remember that night in Godric's Hollow when I was destroyed after trying to kill you? I had intended to use your death to create a horcrux. When I was ripped from my body, my soul was also ripped from me, and it latched onto you." Harry went pale. "You're a horcrux, Harry."

Harry shivered. He raised his wand to retort, but he could feel it inside him. Voldemort's soul. Living inside him. Tainting him. Harry felt sick. It was one thing to have a horcrux. But to be a horcrux? Harry hated Voldemort more than anything in the world. And Harry had a piece of him living within him. Revulsion pooled in the pit of his stomach.

Voldemort turned to the onlooking wizards. "You want to kill me?" he said with a smug laugh. "You'll have to kill your saviour as well."

"This changes nothing," Harry said. "You can't kill me. I can't kill you. Stalemate."

Voldemort laughed again. "You are a fool, Harry Potter, and you will spend the rest of your days kneeling before me. I will always have power over you, because I have this."

Voldemort pulled the pendant over his head and held it in his hand and pulled out the basilisk fang with the other. He grinned at Harry. "Now, either drop that wand of yours," Voldemort said. He raised the basilisk fang high over the pendant. "Or I destroy it."

Harry had known this was coming, but it still landed like a blow to the stomach. The beast roared in Harry's ears as he stared from Voldemort's red eyes to the pendant in his hand. Harry tried to remain calm, but his breathing was growing shallow.

"You wouldn't dare," Harry spat, eyeing the fang nervously.

"Are you willing to find out?" Voldemort hissed.

Harry's vision tunnelled. All he could see was his horcrux and the fang. All he could hear was the beast's angry roars in his ears. All he could feel was the emptiness inside him. The craving for his soul. He couldn't let go. he tried to think of his friends, of why he was doing this in the first place, but all he saw was the snake wrapping itself tighter around the lion's body.

"DROP YOUR WAND!"

Voldemort's words echoed in Harry's ears, and his wand clattered to the ground before he could even process what he had done. He could feel the world crashing down around him. He'd had a plan. What had it been? He'd been so sure.

"That's it, Harry," Voldemort said with a sadistic smile. "Now why don't you break that promise you made earlier and get on your knees?"

Harry couldn't tear his eyes away from his horcrux. Anger shook his bones. Humiliation curdled in his gut. Shame clouded his brain. He was weak. He'd thought he could resist. He'd thought he was stronger than this. Harry braced himself and let his knees go weak. He hit the ground to a silence that was absolute, and deafening. Voldemort turned away from Harry to the onlookers, as if to make sure that everyone had witnessed Harry's surrender.

Voldemort's gaze landed on Sirius, who sat on the ground with a broken leg. There was a look of fury on Sirius' face that Harry had never seen before. Sirius raised his wand, but Voldemort was faster. As Harry knelt in front of him, the Dark Lord killed the only father figure Harry had ever known.

 _Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

Everything fell away when Sirius' body slumped against the stones. All the anger, all the humiliation, all the shame, all the craving, bled away. The cracks inside him splintered in two. The emptiness within him grew. It engulfed him. It suffocated him. He felt like another horcrux had been created.

Harry turned his uncomprehending gaze from Sirius to Voldemort. The beast in his gut had gone silent. Hermione in his head had nothing to say. He could barely feel the shackle around his wrist. Harry got to his feet. As he did, the world came flooding back.

Fury. The most potent wrath Harry had ever felt flooded him as he gazed at the monster before him. Harry raised his hands and forced his voice to work.

" _Potentiam tuam_ ," Harry began. The Dark Lord glanced up at him uncaringly. " _ego repellere auferetur! Separatation duobus dimidiis!"_

Voldemort never knew what was coming. The curse burst from Harry's outstretched hands and hurtled into his chest. There was a crackle of magical energy and blinding blue flash. Voldemort screamed, and crumpled to the ground.

Harry stumbled forwards, gasping for breath. The world tilted dangerously. He saw Sirius's body and tried to force himself up to go to his Godfather, but instead the world went black.

* * *

 **And we've made it to the climax. There are still heaps and heaps of loose ends to tie up and character arcs to fill out so there's probably still going to be a few more chapters to go.**

 **Thanks to everyone who's reviewed and critiqued. This was never meant to be a ground-breaking story with new ideas and concepts, just a way to find my writing again after so long. If you haven't reviewed yet, please do - I'd like to hear what's gone wrong and what's gone well.**

 **In other news, I've wanted someone to punch Lucius in the face since the second book.**


	16. Freedom in Chains

**Chapter 15: Freedom in Chains**

Harry woke up with the feeling of having just come out of a strange and inexplicable dream. To be honest, it still felt as though he was dreaming. He was lying on a soft bed in a dark room that had been cast in a soft orange glow by a solitary candle flickering above his head. He wasn't wearing his overalls anymore. He guessed that he was in a hospital. Beside him, Remus was propped in a chair, sleeping with his head tilted awkwardly to the side.

Harry tried to sit upright, but a wave of nausea hit him, and he thumped back against the mattress with a groan and a hand held to his head.

Remus startled awake. "Harry!" he said blearily. "You're awake."

"Barely," Harry breathed. It felt like a storm had decided to take up residence in his brain.

"That should be expected," Remus said. He reached over and grasped his shoulder. "For a while there, you had less magic inside you than Voldemort did." Remus let the words sink in. "You did it, Harry. Voldemort hasn't got a drop of magic inside him."

Voldemort.

The thought of the monster hit like a blow to the stomach.

"Where is he?" Harry said, struggling to sit up again. "I need to-"

"You need to rest," Remus said firmly. "You've been unconscious for three days. You're suffering from several magical exhaustions and it's going to take a while for you to-"

"You don't understand," Harry said, prying Remus' hands off him. "I _need_ to get to him, now."

"Harry, I do understand," Remus said. His gaze turned sympathetic. "He took Sirius away from you just when you thought you'd got him back. I'm so sorry-"

"No," Harry insisted. "He's not dead. I need to see Voldemort."

"Harry, please-"

"He's _not dead!_ "

The door opened, and a young woman in a Healer's uniform entered.

"Mr. Potter," the Healer said. "Please relax. You're at Saint Mungo's, and you're perfectly safe. Please, just rest-"

"I'll rest after I've seen Voldemort," Harry said. He shoved Remus off him and jumped from the bed. "I have to…" Harry trailed off because he could no longer keep track of his sentence. The world rotated in both directions before his eyes. The ground tilted dangerously. Harry flailed for support and found the bed. He gripped onto it as the world continued to spin round and round, suddenly breathless.

"You have to rest," the Healer said. "And get better."

Harry closed his eyes to keep himself from throwing up. His cheeks burned. "And how long will that take?" he asked.

The Healer studied him sceptically. "Well, considering you only just woke up after three days, I'd say at least another two."

 _Two?_ "No," Harry said, shaking his head incredulously. "I can't wait that long."

The Healer just shrugged unapologetically and opened to the door again. As she stepped out of the room, Remus turned to Harry.

"Just be patient, Harry. I know how much you must be itching for your freedom. Just wait a little longer."

Freedom.

He wouldn't be free until his horcrux hung from his neck.

The door opened, and this time Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley stood in the doorway. They gave him identical grins. Hermione rushed to the edge of the bed, and Ron came up behind her. They stood so close that their hips bumped together. It struck Harry that it was terribly soon for them to have formed such a close bond already, but then he remembered that it had been three days. There was something about their presence together that made him feel even more like a monster.

"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked.

"I'm fine," the response came automatically.

"I'll give you three some time alone," Remus said, and stepped outside.

"I've been doing some research," Hermione declared suddenly. "And I think I've found-" She stopped at the sound of Harry's dry laugh. "What?" she said worriedly.

"You did some research?" Harry said incredulously. "At the library?"

Ron grinned. "That's right, Harry," Ron slung an arm across Hermione's shoulder. "She hasn't changed a bit."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "And clearly, neither have you." She slid from Ron's embrace and looked at Harry seriously. "I saw that shackle around your wrist, Harry, and I think I've found a spell that will get it off."

Harry blinked. "Okay," he said and held out his wrist expectantly. Hermione earnestly removed her wand. She pointed it at the shackle, but before she could cast anything, Ron put a hand over Hermione's.

"Um, are you sure we should do this now?" he said uncertainly.

"Why not?" Harry said.

"Because if it doesn't work, you'll – you know, suffer."

"I can handle it," Harry said. He gazed at Hermione pointedly. "Do it."

Hermione hesitated. "I don't want to hurt you… but I'm pretty sure it will work."

"Just do it."

Hermione lifted the wand and cast the spell. The shackle instantly glowed gasped as the searing hot pain crawled up his arm.

"No-" Hermione cried under her breath. She tried another curse. The pain crescendoed. Harry snatched his hand away. Harry gripped onto the sides of the mattress and managed to maintain his composure. "I'm sorry," Hermione said with wide eyes.

"It's fine," Harry said. The redness was already beginning to fade.

"I just – I just wanted to help," she said. Her gaze turned hard. "I wanted to help, after everything-"

"It's fine," Harry said. "Thanks for trying." Harry sank back against the bedrest. "How about the two of you make it up to me by helping me break out of this goddamn hospital?"

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

The corridor reminded Harry of the Dungeons. It was dark and cold and damp. You could feel the earth in the walls around you. It pervaded the air. Harry shivered. He glanced behind him. He was apparently alone, but Harry knew that Ron and Hermione were there. Harry strolled past cell after cell, until he came to the very last.

The Monster sat on the stone bench behind the metal bars with his eyes closed and his head resting against the stone wall.

"It's no fun, is it?" Harry said. Two red eyes flicked open. "Having nothing but four walls to stare at all day long. Have you started counting each stone yet?"

The two black slits of Voldemort's eyes slowly rolled over to meet his. Harry held his gaze. Voldemort narrowed his eyes and lifted himself from the bench. He moved as close to Harry as he could get, peering at him through the thick metal poles.

"What have you done to me, worthless runt?" he hissed, eyes narrowed.

Harry smiled. "You're a Muggle, Tom."

Voldemort's serpentine face shifted and contorted with rage. He gripped one of the metal bars with his skeletal hand, gazing at his fingers. "You knew you couldn't kill me…" he said. "So instead you take away all my power. You must be quite pleased with yourself."

"It was Vagnof's idea," Harry said easily. "I'll send him your thanks."

"Vagnof is dead!" Voldemort snarled. "And soon you will be, too."

"What," Harry said, prying himself free. "You would destroy a part of yourself just to kill me?"

Voldemort glowered at him through the bars, apparently two overcome with anger to form words. After a moment, his face changed, and he smiled. "I had no idea you were one of my horcruxes," he said. "That is, until I created this," he hooked his thumb under his collar and revealed Harry's pendant. "And noticed that you had two souls inside you. It makes you feel tainted, doesn't it? Knowing that you assist your enemy in his quest for immortality."

Harry had not heard anything Voldemort had said after he had revealed Harry's horcrux. It drowned out everything else. He hated the effect his horcrux had on him.

Voldemort noticed Harry's reaction. "Aah, I see," he said smoothly. "You didn't stoop yourself down to this lowly Muggle just for a chat about horcruxes. You want it back, don't you?"

Harry's eyes flashed. "Give it to me."

"My, my, Harry," Voldemort tutted. "Where are your manners."

"You'd have me _beg_?" Harry growled. He stepped closer to the bars, all too aware of his soul sitting just a meter away.

"Well, yes," Voldemort smarted. "But it wouldn't make a difference. You're never getting this pendant back. I've rather enjoyed having something you desperately desire sitting around my neck."

Harry removed his wand from his robes. "I don't think anyone would blame me if I tortured you into oblivion."

"Neither would I," Voldemort said dangerously. "In fact, I'd want you to. Then you would become the Dark Wizard I always knew you to be. So go on. Crucio me. Torture me. Make me feel everything I deserve and more. Either way, you're never getting this pendant. You'll just have to live through eternity without it. How fitting – two men doomed to outlive the other without that which they desire most in this world. I, power beyond imagining. You, the other half of your soul."

Harry lunged through the bars and seized the front of Voldemort's robes, wrenching him into the bars. He raised his fist, but Voldemort continued to speak. Words tumbled from his lipless mouth.

"You think you're free now? You're not. You never will be. That shackle will always be around your wrist. My soul will always be in your head. You're a soldier. You're my soldier. You can't fight that. You can go home now – try to live a normal life, but one day you'll realise. One day you'll snap. You'll crack up inside and kill someone you love. Maybe it'll be on purpose – maybe it won't. Either way, you won't regret it. You're a dark wizard. A monster-"

"These taunts aren't going to work on me," Harry said. "You're the one who's lost everything. You're the one who's going to spend eternity staring at four walls. You're the one who's going to be forgotten in a matter of years. I may be a monster, but I'm a better monster than you." Harry raised his fist, staring eye-to-eye with the real Monster's red eyes. "You never did learn how to fight like a Muggle, did you?" Harry hissed. "That was your problem. Magic was the answer to everything. Take away the magic, and what's left? A pathetic, deformed lizard-monster."

"Are you going to beat me to death like that soldier boy?" Voldemort taunted.

"As if a monster like you could _bleed_ ," Harry said. "That death is on you."

Voldemort laughed. "I'm not the one who _beat him to death!"_

Voldemort's laugh was shrill and unnatural. His entire body shuddered along with his cackles, making Harry's horcrux glint and flash against his chest. Harry saw it, and remembered why he was here in the first place.

Harry gripped the horcrux. The moment his fingers closed around it, however, a shock ran through his body and he lost all control of his limbs. He sank awkwardly against the bars as Voldemort's laughter rang louder in his ears. Harry tried to force his legs to hold his weight, but instead he crashed onto the ground.

"That's it, Harry," Voldemort's voice reverberated in his head. "Kneel before me one last time. Such a good little soldier."

Harry tried to retort, but his jaw wasn't working properly. He closed his eyes tight and tried to concentrate, but again the world went black.

* * *

 **It's been a while since I last posted. Sorry about that, my motivation took a sharp and sudden plummet. This chapter's also pathetically short, so, apologies for that, too.**

 **Not sure in anyone's actually still reading, but if so I'm going to try and take this story to some sort of satisfying conclusion because I hate unfinished stories just as much as the next person.**


	17. On Thin Ice

**Chapter 16: On Thin Ice**

* * *

Harry stepped out of the fireplace and into the warm embrace of the Burrow. The Weasley household was exactly as he remembered – right down to the dishes cleaning themselves in the sink. The Weasley Clock was proudly hanging on the wall, and every hand was pointed at 'Home'. Harry saw Ron's hand, and wondered where it had been pointing these past three years.

The fireplace roared to life, and Hermione stepped out behind him. They'd just come from Saint Mungo's where Harry had woken up for the second time in this many hours. The Healer's hadn't been able to answer what exactly had happened to Harry – just that he'd been hit with a terribly dark curse. One Healer in particular had been particularly disgruntled over the fact that Harry had left without being officially discharged. However, the Healers had conceded at Hermione's insistence that Harry was free to go now.

Harry assumed Hermione and Ron took him to Saint Mungo's after he collapsed. He didn't really feel like asking. Hermione was behaving oddly. She regarded as one would regard a feral dog – with a close eye and no sudden movements.

"Come on," she said. She gave Harry what he assumed to be an attempt at a reassuring smile, but it didn't reach her eyes.

Harry followed her out the back door, where all the Weasleys and Order members were sat around a long table. The sun hung low in the sky, and cast the revellers in a warm pink glow. The table was laden with every kind of foodstuff imaginable, and Harry was reminded of the feasts at Hogwarts.

Remus was first to notice the two newcomers. He got to his feet as Harry and Hermione took the two empty seats at the end of the table next to Ginny and Ron.

Remus lifted his glass to Harry and said, "There's so much the Wizarding World has to thank you for, Harry. But for now, I think we'll just say this. Welcome home."

The revellers lifted their drinks and echoed Remus' sentiment. Harry ducked his head low and tried not to make eye contact.

"Lo, Scarface," Ron said, smirking beside him. He dropped something in front of Harry. "This is from three days ago. Thought you might like it."

Harry unfolded the newspaper. On the front page in block letters were the words **POTTER DEFEATS DARK LORD**. Underneath, a moving of photo of Harry hurling a flood of magic at Voldemort in a fit of rage took up half the page. Harry tossed the newspaper away from him in disgust.

"Can't believe you slept through your first three days of freedom," Ron said. "And then when you do wake up, the first thing you want to do is go back to the man who imprisoned you in the first place!"

Harry ignored the jab. "Well, what have I missed?"

Ginny and Ron proceeded to explain the events that had occurred after what came to be known as the Fall of Voldemort. Kingsley Shacklebolt had been declared the Acting Minister of Magic until an election could be held. The entire Wizarding World was still reeling from the knowledge that Voldemort was really gone. Voldemort and most of his Death Eaters had been captured and were currently awaiting trial, but multitudes had managed to escape.

"They're putting us soldiers to good use," Ron said with a grin. "We're all working to hunt down the runaway Death Eaters with the Aurors. It's the best thing ever – we're hunting down the bastards using the very techniques they taught us! Are you going to come join the fun?

Harry shook his head. "I have business with Voldemort I need to deal with first."

Hermione frowned at him. Harry returned her look and suddenly realised why she was acting so odd. She'd been there when Harry had been talking to Voldemort. She'd heard everything. She knew what the pendant was. Harry looked away, suddenly feeling ill.

"I warned you, didn't I? I'm a monster," Harry muttered. "You know what my pendant is. You know why my eyes are red."

"They're not red," Hermione burst out. "They're just… a little darker."

The corner of Harry's mouth twitched. "There's a metaphor for you. Harry Potter – a little darker."

Hermione laid a hand on his shoulder. He resisted the urge to pull away.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said. "I didn't understand at first. I thought – I don't know what I thought, but Ron and I have talked, and we want to help. We're going to do whatever it takes to get your soul back. There must be some way to figure what that curse was that Voldemort put on it."

Harry couldn't bring himself to look at her. Something about her words made him feel tainted and broken and wrong. Perhaps it was the kindness. Merlin knows it was a long time the soldier's had indulged in true kindness. It was one thing to be kind, but to accept kindness was an entirely different matter.

"Are you going to eat or what?" Ginny said, stirring Harry from his thoughts.

Harry glanced down at his empty plate and then at the numerous foodstuffs that had been laid out on the table before him.

"It's a bit surreal," Ron said, recognising the look on Harry's face. "After the shit we had to eat, this stuff if the food of the Gods."

"What _did_ you eat?" Hermione asked.

"This weird craggy stuff that was probably magically altered to contain only the bare minimum amount of nutrients required to keep us alive. Everyone hated it – Harry most of all," Ron grinned at Harry. "This one time, he tossed a bowl of the stuff at the back of this Death Eater's head. It was pretty funny. You should have seen the look on the Death Eater's face when he turned around. And what did Harry do? He just stood and opened his arms out wide for the crucio!"

Ron let out a barking laugh. Hermione and Ginny turned their gazes to Harry, who wanted to sink into his seat.

"Ron," Harry muttered. "Shut up."

Ron stopped laughing. "Well – um, it wasn't funny at the time."

"Did they really use crucios?" Ginny said in a small voice.

"Of course they-"

"Can we talk about something else, please?" Harry interrupted.

The four fell into an uncomfortable silence. The other revellers at the table took no notice of the suddenly sombre mood at the end of the table. Fred and George were currently in the midst of a heated debate with Tonks and Charlie over their latest respective Quidditch teams' tactics. Mrs Weasley was fretting over the length of Bill's hair. Remus and Arthur were conversing quietly together. Harry poked at a roast potato as he listened in on their conversation.

"I heard Black left you the Grimmauld Place. I was wondering what your plans were to…" Arthur began, but trailed off when Remus hushed him with a concerned look down the table at Harry. The boy in question had gone rigid.

"Harry," Remus said slowly, apparently at a loss.

 _He's not dead._

Harry turned pointedly away from Remus and said tightly to Hermione, "So, what have you been getting up to these past three years?"

"I – um," Hermione stuttered. She glanced from Harry to Remus. Remus leant back in his chair, giving Hermione a resigned look over Harry's shoulder. "I've been helping out with the Order, mostly. I've also been trying to continue Ginny and I's education, you know, since Hogwarts-"

"Oh!" Ginny gasped. "That reminds me! Harry – I have something for you."

She leapt from the table and bounded inside the Burrow. A moment later she reappeared and set down a large, cardboard box in front of Harry with a lopsided grin and an expectant gaze.

Harry blinked at the mysterious box.

"See, Harry," Ron said after a moment. "The thing about gifts, is that you generally have to open them to see what's inside."

Harry scowled at him and opened up the box. When he saw what was inside, he released a shallow breath. It was filled with all of his stuff from his days at Hogwarts. There were his robes and his Gryffindor tie, the Marauder's Map, the Invisibility Cloak, and even his Phoenix Feather wand. But sitting at the very top, looking small and insignificant, were his wire-framed glasses.

He gingerly lifted them from the box. They felt impossibly small and light in his hand. He opened them up and placed them on the tip of his nose. They made his vision go cross-eyed, and he could barely make out Hermione across the table.

The two Hermiones in his vision smiled. "There he is," she said.

Harry took of the glasses and poked out the lenses. He slipped the wire frame back on. He turned his gaze to the Burrow, whose windows cast his own crisp reflection back at him. It was Harry. He felt like he was back at Hogwarts again. Something in his gut stitched back together. It was like rediscovering a part of himself. It was like returning home. He felt like Harry again. Not like a soldier. Not like a Dark Wizard. Not like a monster. He felt like a human being.

All he could manage was "thanks."

He turned to Ginny, but her lopsided grin had faded. She looked downright mortified. Harry suddenly realised that while putting the glasses back on, his sleeve had slipped down, revealing the shackle.

"What-"

"Forget it," Harry said, pulling down his sleeve.

"She's bound to see it at some point," Ron shrugged at Harry. "Why hide it?"

"Maybe because _I_ don't like seeing it," Harry snapped.

"We'll find a way to get it off, too," Hermione insisted, clutching at Harry's hand.

"It's never coming off," Harry returned. Harry realised in a moment of sudden clarity that he hadn't defeated Voldemort – not really. He was still trapped. Trapped inside this shackle around his wrist. Trapped inside the pendant around Voldemort's neck. And what was freedom, really? A caged bird may sing for freedom, but the wild bird is still chained to the sky. Harry could still feel the chains fastened tight.

Harry took off the glasses and shoved them into his pocket. He pulled away from Hermione and stood up.

"You heard what Voldemort said," Harry said. "I'm never going to be free. I'm never coming home. I might as well just accept that."

Harry stalked off before they could reply. He headed into the Burrow, intending to Floo to the first location that popped into his head, but caught up with him before he could.

"We need to talk, Harry," Remus said, holding out the vase of Floo Powder. "Come on, let's go to Grimmauld Place."

Harry did not want to go to Grimmauld Place. Nevertheless, he accepted a handful of powder and stepped into the fireplace.

When he arrived in Grimmauld Place, he breathed in the familiar smell of stale oak and dust. The house was dark and silent. Remus appeared behind him in a roar of green flames.

"Sirius left this house to me in his will," Remus said. "I think he would've preferred to give it to you, but at the time of writing it, we weren't even sure if you were alive." Remus paused as though expecting Harry to say something. When he didn't Remus continued. "You're more than welcome to stay here and live with me. I'm not sure what to do with it, otherwise. Maybe we could liven it up a bit. It's a bit gloomy. You don't have to – I just thought – if you want…" he trailed off.

 _If you want._ What in Merlin's name did Harry want? He didn't reply. He stood there in silence and let Remus gaze at him with that concerned expression of his.

"You do understand… don't you?" Remus said quietly. "That Sirius is gone?"

Harry turned his gaze to the emerald sofa sitting in the corner without saying a word. He forced himself to think of something else. Anything else.

"Harry," Remus said, louder this time. "I buried him next to your parents. He's not coming back."

"Do you know of a curse that can make someone lose their ability to control their muscles and then fall unconscious?" Harry asked suddenly.

Remus furrowed his brows. "Harry – Sirius Black has passed away."

"I asked you a question."

"And I'm telling you that your Godfather is dead!"

"No, he's not!" Harry said before he could stop himself. "He's not fucking dead. Why can't you accept that?"

Remus stepped closer to him. "Harry, you need to understand that Voldemort murdered-"

"NO!" Harry bellowed. He splayed out his hands, and Remus went flying into the opposite wall. "He's not dead!" Harry cried at Remus as he picked himself up off the floor. "He's not allowed to be dead. If he'd dead, than it means it was my fault!" There it was. The beast came alive, sending his entire body into a sudden state of turmoil. The words flowed from his mouth before he could stop them.

"I'm the one who surrendered! I'm the one who knelt on the ground! I'm the one who was _on his knees_ while his own Godfather was _murdered_!"

The words burnt like acid in his throat. He felt sick. His gut roiled with disgust as the memories came flooding back.

"Harry-"

"HE'S DEAD BECAUSE OF ME!" Harry cried. "IT'S ALL MY FAULT.."

He clenched his eyes shut and balled his hands into fists to keep the magic inside him. He wanted to crawl out of his own skin. Maybe he didn't know what he wanted - but he sure knew what he didn't. He didn't want to be Harry anymore. He didn't want to _feel_ anymore. He didn't want Hermione's kindness. He didn't want Remus' concerned expression. He wanted someone to tell him he was a monster for everything that he'd done. He thought of Colin. He thought of the Muggle he'd killed. He thought of Regulus. He thought of the man who'd been killed to create his horcrux.

He wanted someone to hate him just as much as he hated himself. He wanted someone to just acknowledge the fact that he was dark and broken beyond repair.

Remus gripped him by the shoulders. Harry's eyes flashed open.

"It is not your fault!" Remus said forcefully, giving him a firm shake. "Sirius was his own man. He knew there was a plan to be followed, but he want and confronted Voldemort anyway. That was his stupid, reckless decision. There's nothing you could do to change that."

"But I _knew_ ," Harry choked out. " _I fucking knew this would happen._ I kept him away. I forced myself not to let him get close – but it still hurts. Why does it hurt _so much_?"

His vision went blurry. He couldn't support his own weight anymore. He sank to the ground, and Remus fell with him, still gripping him by the shoulders. He couldn't keep himself from shaking. His heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. He could barely breathe. It came in shallow hitching gasps. The panic came in waves. It was too much. He wanted it to stop. He wanted everything to _stop_ -

"Just breathe," Remus said. He held Harry's face between his hands and gazed right into his eyes. Harry found that he couldn't look away. Remus took a deliberate breath in, and out. In, and out. Harry tried to follow his rhythm. He forced air in through his nose, and out through his mouth.

"No listen to me," Remus said softly but firmly. "Sirius' death was not your fault. He loved you so much, Harry. More than you could possibly imagine. He would never have wanted this guilt to be placed on you."

His words didn't help. He was hit with another wave of nausea every time he thought of Sirius. Remus pulled him into a tight embrace. Harry closed his eyes and breathed in Remus's warm scent. He smelled like the woods on a winter morning. There was something about being held like this that stilled the madness inside him. Harry found himself pulling Remus closer.

They stayed like that, embracing on the floor of Grimmauld Place, until well after Harry's heart had returned to its normal beat.

* * *

 **Lots, and lots, of angst in this one. It's going to continue in this fashion for a little while, I'm afraid. But I promise it will get better.**

 **I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of reviews I got for the last chapter. I want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has reviewed. A special shout out goes to 'Ansy' - you've reviewed more than anyone else, and each one has made me smile.**

 **Chapters are gong to take a little longer unfortunately. Year 12 is well and truly underway now and I'm finding I have less and less time to write, but rest assured - I will bring this story to a conclusion.**


	18. Behind A Pretty Voice

**Chapter 17: Behind a Pretty Voice**

The days passed slowly for Harry. He'd decided to live at Grimmauld Place with Remus. He slept on the top floor because it contained the bedroom that was the most unlike the those in the Barracks. It was large, with an arched ceiling, large open windows, and every surface was busy with details. He found that he couldn't rest at night unless all the curtains were cast open to let in that queer luminosity of the night.

He hated the night time. In waking hours, he could feel something close to resembling normal. He could go about his day and keep the darker things at bay, but at night, everything came rushing back to the surface. As he lay there, he could feel the absence of his soul in every atom of his physiology. That longing for it was crushing, and all-encompassing. He would barely be able to lie still and became well acquainted with the nuances and details in that high arched ceiling.

Draco Malfoy was staying at Grimmauld Place as well. After the Fall of Hogwarts, he'd initially been arrested and put on trial, but his case had been dismissed after every Order member had showed up to vouch for his loyalties. Upon release, however, Draco found that he'd been banished from Malfoy Manor and had no rights to even a penny of the Malfoy fortune. He was broke, and homeless, so Remus took him in.

Harry found it endlessly bizarre to be living under the same roof as Malfoy. However, the two boys barely even acknowledged each other's existence, and this suited them both just fine.

During the day, Harry spent his time with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. They combed through every library they could get access to, looking for the name of the curse that Voldemort had on Harry's horcrux.

Harry quickly learned that Hermione might have been sad, but that wasn't all she was. She was a determined machine when it came to research. She scoped out each library as a general would survey a battle field – looking for the most obvious places, as well as the hidden gold mines, and endlessly barking orders. Ginny seemed to believe that it was her job to keep Harry out of his own thoughts. He could barely get any time alone while they were researching, but he found that he didn't mind. Ginny's company was nice. She made him feel a little lighter.

Ron's liberation hadn't seemed to affect him at all. He still told the same black jokes and told Hermione and Ginny inappropriate stories about Gaunt Camp. Harry wished he would stop. He could tell Hermione and Ginny were secretly hanging onto every word Ron said. Wasn't it better to leave this stuff in the past?

Everything felt so new to Harry. The simple act of going to a library sounded endlessly trivial. It was also his first time in a public space. The first library he'd been to, he'd been inundated with a swamp of people. Some congratulated him – others ridiculed him – but the majority hated him. It seemed that four days without the threat of Lord Voldemort was not enough to make the Wizarding World forget his three years of servitude prior. Needless to say, he went to the other libraries in disguise.

Harry's research for the spell they hunted was oftentimes half-hearted at best. If he were honest, he didn't think he would ever get his soul back. He tried to tell himself he was okay with that. Hermione seemed to grow disgruntled by Harry's lack of enthusiasm.

A week passed of this routine, and then in the evening of the seventh day they found the spell. Ginny was the one who found it buried in a tomb filled with descriptions of the Darkest Art. She held up the book like a trophy and began to yell and whoop in the library isle.

Harry took the book from her and read it over three times. The descriptions matched what had happened to him perfectly. They'd found the curse. Harry was going to get his horcrux back.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Hermione wanted to come with him again, but this time Harry insisted on going alone.

"I know exactly what I'm doing. I don't need a babysitter," he'd muttered.

He left the three of them behind as he entered into that long, thin dungeon corridor. He hated these dungeon cells. They were located deep beneath the Ministry directly below the Auror's wing. What Harry couldn't understand why they hadn't moved Voldemort to Azkaban and thrown away the key yet.

Voldemort was sat in the same position he'd been before, but this time his red eyes latched onto Harry the moment he came into view. Harry unlocked the cell door and stepped inside. He eyed Voldemort, but the Dark Lord did not move.

Harry raised his wand and cast the anti-spell on the pendant sitting around Voldemort's neck. It glowed golden for a moment and then faded.

A smile crept onto Voldemort's lipless mouth, but still he did not move. Harry stepped closer. All he had to do was snatch the device from him. He hesitated. He hadn't expected silence. How did Voldemort always have the ability to render him so unconfident?

He reached out for his horcrux and pulled, snapping the chain off Voldemort's neck. He stepped quickly back, gripping the horcrux between his fingers and savouring that sudden flood of elation, as though his blood had been turned to melted butter in his veins.

Voldemort still hadn't moved. "Well done, Harry," he said in a serpentine drawl. "You can tick that one off. What's next on the list? Remove the shackle? Destroy the shard of my soul inside you?" The Dark Lord laughed. "Vagnof clasped that shackle around your wrist himself. That shackle's never coming off."

Harry moved to the door, clutching the pendant close. "Goodbye, Tom."

Voldemort's face contorted into a snarl. "There's no saying goodbye to me, soldier. My soul will always be inside you. You carry me wherever you go."

"I got my horcrux back, didn't I?" Harry said. "I'll find a way to be rid of this, too."

Voldemort's smile remained stuck to his sallow face. "So the soldier thinks he could be a normal boy. You're wrong." Harry huffed and moved to the door again. Voldemort spoke up, louder. "You'll be enlisting Hermione's help for that, I suppose?"

Harry paused. There was something about Voldemort saying Hermione's name that felt profoundly wrong. Hermione's name shouldn't be tainted by this monster's hissing intonations.

"She always was the voice of reason, wasn't she?" Voldemort continued. "A voice you could trust. She's gotten you through some difficult times over the years, has she not?"

"What are you talking about?" Harry said.

 _Hold on, Harry. You're stronger than this, Harry. Kill the Muggle, Harry._

Harry flinched. His blood ran cold. He turned back to Voldemort. The Dark Lord smirked at him.

 _I'm not Hermione, Harry. I was never Hermione. My Name is Lord Voldemort, Harry!_

 _Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!_

"Stop it," Harry snarled, clutching his hands to his head. He shut his eyes tight. This was not happening. Please – this could not be happening. Laughter reverberated through his brain. High and shrill and maniacal – not at all how Hermione would laugh.

 _Why should I stop, Harry? This is the voice you cling to. This is the voice you trust more than anything._

It was Voldemort all along. He'd crawled into the darkest corners of Harry's mind. He'd turned Hermione into his tool to weld. To whisper words of encouragement. He tried to remember the first time he'd heard her. It had been when he was in the Dungeons after causing the uprising. He'd been going insane, but she'd told him to hold on. Voldemort had told him to hold on. What good was an insane soldier?

She'd been the one to chant 'master' over and over until it burst from him alongside the Cat. She'd been the one to convince him to fight back against Voldemort when the Entrancement has largened his core. She'd been the one to accuse him of having a 'saving people thing' as though that was something undesirable. She'd been the one to call him an idiot for losing Sirius.

"I'll kill you," Harry breathed. All this time. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

 _Our little connection really is quite amazing, isn't it?_ Hermione's voice lowered in pitch until it became Voldemort's low hiss. _Whenever you were particularly stressed or traumatised, I found that I could enter your mind quite easily. It's been quite fun._

" _Get out of my head_ ," Harry bit out. He crushed his palms against either side of his skull. Voldemort was still seated and unmoving on the bench. A sadistic grin still perched on his mouth. Was there no end to what this bastard had done to him? Was there anything of Harry's that had not been touched and tainted and broken by this monster?

 _Idiot. Idiot. Idiot._

Harry screamed and rushed from the cell. He had to get away from this monster. He had to. He had to. He had to. But Voldemort's hysterical laughter followed him. He burst out of the dungeons. Hermione, Ginny, and Ron jumped to their feet in alarm.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asked.

Harry flinched at the sound of her voice. His entire person shrank away from her. He needed to get away from the bastard. But the monster was still there. Chanting over and over in his mind, drowning out everything else.

 _Idiot, idiot, idiot._

The walls were closing in. He shoved past his friends, stumbling all the way, and disapparated to the furthest location he could think of.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

"We need to find him," Hermione said.

"Harry is his own person," Ron replied as he moved his white rook two spaces forward. Ginny frowned over her board of black pieces. "I'm sure he's just fine."

"Ron don't be an idiot!" Hermione returned. The chess pieces gave her angry huffing noises for raising her voice. Hermione ignored the blasted things. "You saw Harry when he came out those dungeons. Something had him seriously disturbed."

"That's just the effect Voldemort has on Harry. What did you expect?" Ron said.

"You're not listening!" Hermione huffed. "He's been gone all day now."

"Hermione right," Ginny said leaning back in her chair. "We should look for him. Something might be wrong – look what happened last time."

Ron rolled his eyes.

Hermione said, "I've looked everywhere for him. He's nowhere."

Ginny glanced up hesitantly. "Ron," she said slowly. "You know all about… tracking… people. Do you know anything we could do to find Harry?"

Ron sighed. "If I do this, and we find out Harry is fine, will you leave him along?"

"Of course."

The three apparated to Grimmauld Place. Ron went straight to Harry's room on the top floor and found the Invisibility Cloak amongst the unkept rubble. He placed it at the centre of the room and drew golden figures around it with his wand.

"I've actually always wanted to try this spell in real life," Ron said as he worked. "It finds someone using a treasured item as its anchor. Problem is, you have to know someone really well to know what belongings they value most." Ron conducted the ritual and an intrigued Ginny and Hermione looked on. Ron's face changed. "He's in the Muggle world."

"What's he doing there?" Ginny asked.

"Visiting his relatives?" Hermione suggested with a doubtful expression.

"No, I know what he's doing," Ron said grimly. He ended the ritual and held out arm. "Come on, I'll apparate us there."

They landed in a large cemented place with a low ceiling and a small multitude of Muggle automobiles lined up in neat rows. Across the large expanse, there was a commotion of men shouting and jeering.

"Where are we?" Ginny asked.

"It's a Muggle carpark," Hermione said. "It's where Muggles store their cars."

"Harry and I tracked down a fugitive to this location," Ron said.

"What was a fugitive doing here?" Ginny asked.

Ron just shrugged and gestured to the rowdy men. They approached and found that the men were clutching handfuls of Muggle money. They waved them in the air as they yelled and jeered at two fighters in the centre of a makeshift ring that was strung up between the support beams that held up the cement roof.

"Merlin," Ginny breathed.

"This is barbaric," Hermione said.

In case you hadn't already guessed, one of the fighters was Harry. He looked much worse off than the other fighter, who was a good head taller than Harry and had decidedly less blood on him. Nevertheless, Harry appeared to be holding his own. It appeared to Hermione that had no sense of self-preservation. He didn't even try to block his opponent's blows. He just took them, recovered, and retaliated with more purpose than ever.

"I haven't told you guys about the Cage, have I?" Ron said over the men's shouts. He watched Harry fight with grim eyes. "We set up on of these at the camp. I guess it became a way to blow of steam and settle petty arguments."

"Your life wasn't already difficult enough – you had to start fighting each other?" Ginny said.

Ron shrugged. He didn't really have an answer. No one had ever really questioned the Cage. It was exciting and exhilarating. It was something that wasn't controlled by the death Eaters. They decided for themselves whether they entered the Cage or not. But watching Harry fight, Ron could suddenly see the perverseness and the morbidity of what's they'd done.

A thick man with a low, ambling gait lumbered over to them. He was probably bigger in body mass than all three of them put together.

"You ain't copper, are yeh?" he grumbled at them

"No," Ron said.

"Ah, good," he said. "We ain't exactly on the right side o' lady law here, yeh see."

"That fighter," Hermione said, pointing to Harry. "How long has he been here?"

The man shrugged. "Just for today. Kid showed up outta the blue. Demanded a fight. We thought we'd humour 'im, but then found out how good 'e was," he said with a toothy grin. "Scarface's been fighting ever since."

" _Scarface?"_

"He's been fighting all day?" Ginny asked. At the man's noncommittal shrug, she turned to Ron. "We have to do something."

"Do what, Ginny?" Ron asked. "Harry's the one who climbed over those ropes. This is on him."

"He's been fighting for _hours_ ," Hermione hissed. "That's physically impossible unless he's relying on _something else_. He'll deplete himself."

"So, let's stop the fight," Ginny suggested.

The man held up his hands. "Woah, woah," he said. "We got men bettin' all they got on this fight. If it don't come to a satisfying conclusion – they gonna lose all that money. Stoppin' the fight is outta the question."

Hermione turned to Ron. She gazed at him pointedly. Surely he had some plan for how to help Harry, but the boy just shrugged.

"If it makes yeh feel any better, this's the last fight fo' the night. If yeh friend wants to keep fighting, he'll 'ave to find it somewhere else."

The three stood on the outskirts, watching as Harry let the other fighter deliver blow after blow, and yet keep standing. Finally, the other fighter managed to hook his leg behind Harry's and send him crashing onto his back.

The fighter stood over Harry and raised his fist, but held it there in warning. Harry panted on the ground and stared up at the fighter. The onlooked counted to ten, their cries growing more desperate and frenzies as the count climbed. They reached ten, and the fight was over.

The men exchanged their money, and began to filter off in different directions. Finally, all that was left was Harry, still lying on his back in the centre of the ring, and a man in a gaudy brown suit. The man leant on one of the support beams and counted a thick wad of cash.

"You sure you don't want a cut?" the man said as Harry gingerly sat up. "This has been a very good night for business – all 'cause of you."

"And what am I supposed to do with money?" came Harry's coarse mutter.

"I dunno," the man replied. He eyed Harry. "Casts and bandages don't exactly come cheap." The man glanced up at the three onlookers. "Can I help you?" he asked, his hand hovering over his belt.

"We're here for Scarface," Ron said loudly.

Harry stiffened, and his reaction was not missed by the man. "Now, now, there's not going to be any trouble it there?" the man said. "There ain't no honour in assaulting a man who's already down."

"No, we're friends," Hermione said. "We can take… Scarface… home."

Harry twisted around from his spot on the ground with a grimace. He gazed up at Hermione and gave a small, twisted smile.

* * *

 **Okay, be honest - what did you think of the twist about Hermione's voice in Harry's head? I only thought of it after I'd already started writing it and realised I'd sort of neglected the fact that Harry and Voldemort have that connection.**


	19. Sequence to Self-Destruct

**Chapter 18: Sequence to Self-Destruct**

* * *

Ron all but shoved Harry into a chair at the dining table in Grimmauld Place. He grimaced at the movement that jarred his already bruised and exhausted muscles. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and in its place he could feel the familiar exhaustion that came with magical depletion.

"I can look after myself," Harry muttered, feeling every bit like a misbehaving toddler.

" _Clearly,"_ came Ron's scathing reply.

"A _fight club?_ " Hermione said, standing over him with folded arms. Her voice grated against his nerves. It scratched against his skull. "You've been at a fight club all this time?"

 _Idiot. Idiot. Idiot._

Harry jerked his head to try and silence the incessant chant. "Leave me alone," he muttered under his breath.

"We clearly can't do that," Hermione said. "Because if we do, you'll go and let Muggles beat you up for their amusement! What is _possessed_ you-" she seemed to realise what she was saying and stopped. "Why would you do something so reckless?"

Harry cocked his head to the side. He lifted his hand to his temple, and when he drew it away, there was blood on his fingers. "Habit."

Hermione let out a frustrated huff and began to pace in front of him. Ron and Ginny stepped back, apparently perfectly comfortable with surrendering Harry to Hermione's vexations.

"We've all been working tirelessly to help you, Harry," she said, lifting her eyes to the roof. "And how do you thank us? By disappearing to let us fret over you while you go and get beaten up-"

"I never asked you to-"

"I _know_ these last years have been difficult," Hermione said over the top of him. "I know how difficult it must be to adjust, but this is… this is beyond me. You're free, for crying out loud! It's like you don't even want it!"

Harry leant forward in his chair, ignoring the sparks of pain in his bones. "These years have been difficult," he agreed. Hermione stopped, and they met each other's gaze. "I've had to live through some pretty _difficult_ situations, and you know what helped me through those situations? You did," Harry jabbed his finger at her, then at his temple. "You were in here, all the time, Hermione. Whispering to me. Telling me what to do. Telling me to hold on. There were times when it was all I could do to cling to your voice in my head."

Harry forced himself to keep Hermione's gaze. Forced himself to continue. "Do you know what I found out today? Your voice was Voldemort all along. He used your voice inside my head to manipulate me."

Hermione was silent for a long time. Harry watched her expression change a hundred times.

"That's horrible," she said in a small voice. A voice that rasped against his eardrums like fingernails to a chalkboard. He cringed and resisted the urge to clutch his hands to his head. Instead, he curled them into fists and slammed them against the hard wooden table.

"I don't need your _fucking pity_ ," he said. He leapt to his feet. The beast came alive in his gut. A burst of energy swirled around him despite his exhaustion. Hermione jumped back. She withdrew the monkeys from her pocket. She held them up, but she didn't throw them. Harry eyed them, breathing heavily.

"Hermione-"

"Sit down," Hermione interrupted. She swallowed hard and levelly returned Harry's furious gaze. She lifted her chin. "Sit down, so that we can talk about this. Please."

And Harry thought he was past being ordered around. He eyed the monkeys. He took in another breath, glanced away, and sat down with all the dignity he could muster. He folded his arms across his chest. He gazed up at Hermione expectantly.

Hermione took a deep breath, her entire chest rising and falling, and said, "We're trying to help you. But none of that matters if you don't help yourself."

Harry glanced away again. He gazed down at his battered body. The beast had gone quiet again. The exhaustion was making him feel lightheaded.

"Do you know why I like fighting so much, Hermione?" he asked. His voice seemed to be working without his consent. "It's because suddenly I'm put in a situation where I can control everything. Life becomes much simpler when you're fighting. There's just you, and your opponent. And the fight drowns out everyone else. When I'm fighting, I'm not thinking about the shackle around my wrist, of the soul inside my head. And when I win a fight, I am reminded that I am not helpless. That I'm still alive and surviving." He paused. "Maybe that makes me a monster."

"You're not a monster."

Harry couldn't help laughing. "You only say that because you don't know about everything." He gestured to Ron. "Tell her, Ron. Tell her about the soldier boy I fought with after I had my soul ripped in two," he spat.

"I already know about the soldier boy, Harry," Hermione said. He voice rose. "You're not a monster! You're a human being! You've always been a human being, and you always been a human being. And no one can take that from you. Human beings to terrible things. Human beings suffer terrible losses. But you know what else? Human beings keep pushing forward. We get back on our feet and keep going. And as human beings, we all get to decide whether we move forward or get left behind. You can talk to me about torn souls and murdered friends, but in the end, that's all it comes down to. So choose."

It struck Harry that this was not the Hermione he'd expected. Certainly, it wasn't the Hermione he'd reunited with back when he'd been kidnapped.

"You think it's that simple?" Harry bit out. "How can I possibly live a normal life from here?"

"The same way we lived life in the camp," Ron spoke up. "One day at a time."

Harry shook his head and glanced at the floor. Why couldn't anyone understand? He reached under his collar and held the pendant in his palm. It occurred to him that this was as close to mortal as he would ever get.

"To what end?" Harry said absently, thinking of his horcrux. Of how it would feel to drive a basilisk fang though it. Of meeting his parents in the afterlife. Of meeting Sirius. What was left here, anyway? Just a Dark Lord in his head.

Harry hadn't expected at answer, but Ron stepped forward and clapped a hand painfully on his shoulder.

"To show that bastard that we're more than just a bunch of fucking soldiers."

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Harry and Ginny sat side by side on the floor in one of Grimmauld Place's many rooms. Hermione sat hunched over a long piece of parchment that was probably as long as she was, listed with all the counter-curses that had the slimmest chance of removing Harry's shackle.

The door opened, and Ron stepped into the room, looking dishevelled and disgruntled. "You know, Gaunt Camp had its faults," he said. "But at least the Death Eaters let us keep our dignity. I went to visit the Twins at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and some arsehole came up and spat in my face!"

"Why would someone do that?" Harry said.

"Being a Dark Soldier is about as Taboo as saying Voldemort's name was," Hermione said. "You should read the papers. They're equating Dark Soldiers to Death Eaters. There are calls to have you all arrested. There's going to be a march in Diagon Alley."

Harry frowned at this, but couldn't say he was surprised. Merlin knew he was guilty of enough crimes to be given a life sentence in Azkaban several times over. What was more surprising was that he wasn't already, if he thought about it.

"Why hasn't this happened already?" Harry asked.

"Shacklebolt is temporary Minister," Ginny said. "He's been vouching for you all – you know, insisting that you didn't have a choice, and that you should be treated like victims of the Imperius Curse."

"Too bad the rest of the world doesn't share his opinion," Ron muttered as he scrubbed at his face. "So, are we going to do this or what?"

Hermione took that as her cue and stood in front of them, clutching the long parchment.

"Okay, I've made a list of every counter-spell that could work. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell whether they will work or not without actually casting them on the shackle, so this is going to have to be a process of elimination." Harry cringed. "Harry, we'll put you under a sleep spell, so you won't feel that pain. Ron, you'll cast the spell as I give them to you. Ginny, you're the moral compass."

"I'm the what now?"

"Your job is to tell us to stop if you think Harry's in too much pain."

"Don't tell them to stop," Harry said. He wanted this over as quickly as possible. Like ripping off a band-aid. An excruciatingly painful, searing-hot band-aid. He hitched up his sleeve and laid back against the floor.

Ron crouched beside him. "Sleep tight," he said. He pointed his wand right between Harry's eyes and cast a spell. Harry's eyes immediately grew heavy. He let out a breath and let the world fade away…

Only for it to be brought back into painfully sharp focus again when the boiling pain shot up his arm. Hermione sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as Harry clenched his jaw against the pain.

"Apparently," Hermione huffed. "The curse on the shackle also wakes you up so that you can feel the pain."

"How many did you get through?"

"Two."

Harry let out a frustrated growl at the ceiling. "So I guess I just have to be awake for it," he said. He tried to make his voice sound braver than he felt. "Keep going."

Ron sent Hermione a dubious look and cast the next spell on the shackle. Harry clenched his jaw shut and closed his eyes tight against the pain. It crawled up his arm like a spider, and then began to fade.

"I said _keep going_ ," Harry ground out, and couldn't keep himself from flinching as the pain renewed itself. He tried to keep still, but everything inside him rebelled.

"As the designated moral compass, I feel it is my obligation to inform you all that this looks remarkably like torture."

"Which I've given my consent, so just hurry up and get it over with," Harry said, staring stubbornly at the ceiling.

"Harry," Ron said, leaning back on his haunches. "This feels wrong."

"Well, I'm sorry I've offended your delicate sensibilities!" Harry shot back. "You're a soldier, Ron. Start acting like it."

Ron looked affronted, and for a moment Harry regretted saying it, but all thoughts of regret quickly vanished when Ron cast the next spell. He cast them in quick succession, one after the other, and suddenly the pain blossomed into his torso, making him feel nauseous.

"Ginny-" Harry gasped. "New job."

"Yeah?" she said, kneeling beside him.

"Distract me."

Ginny stared down at him and didn't move. Harry opened his eyes and squinted up at her, wondering what she was doing. She raised her eyebrows, gave him a reckless grin and leant over. Her red hair fell into his face, and then her lips brushed against his. They were soft and warm and tasted like spring rain. Everything inside him went euphorically still. All thoughts of the pain wracking his body left him.

"Ginny!"

She pulled away at Ron's affronted outburst. Harry stared up at her. Part of him wondered whether or not he'd imagined what had just happened.

"I meant-" he stuttered, shuddering under the pain that came flooding back. "I meant – talking. Talking to distract me."

"Oh."

Ginny knelt beside him and whispered into his ear as Ron continued the spells. Harry braced himself as best he could as he listened to the voice that was so unlike Hermione's. It was lower and less lilting. It didn't pierce his mind like Hermione's did. Instead it seeped in the way a hard-boiled sweet dissolves on your tongue, making your whole mouth tingle.

"I'm right beside you, Harry," he voice said, and Harry heard her. He clung to her words and shut his eyes tight. "Stay strong. You're stronger than this."

Harry's eyes flew open, bitterly reminded of Hermione' identical words. "Don't say that. Don't say things like that," he bit out.

Ginny kept talking at Harry's insistence. After a while, he could barely understand what she was saying. That didn't matter. He just focused on the lilt of her voice. The way her voice rose and fell. He forced himself to focus on that instead of the pain.

"What the fuck is going on?" Malfoy's voice jarred Harry back into reality. Ginny and Hermione shot to their feet like children who'd been caught stealing cookies. Ron leant back and glared at Malfoy.

"What are you doing here?" he spat.

"I live here," Malfoy drawled. "What are you doing to Potter? Aren't you people supposed to be his friends or something?"

"We're trying to get the shackle off," Hermione said, gesturing to the red-hot band of metal still attached to Harry's wrist.

"Oh," Malfoy said. "Well it looks an awful lot like torture, to be honest."

"Fuck off, Malfoy," Harry said from his position on the floor. "Keep going, Ron."

Ron scrubbed a hand over his face and left his wand where it was by his side. "Draco Malfoy just walked in and said we were torturing you, Harry. I'm not doing this anymore," he said.

"Let me," Draco said, stepping forward.

"Because you'd jump at any opportunity to torture Harry, wouldn't you?" Ron spat.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "I can clearly stomach it better than any of you," he said. He turned his gaze Harry. "What do you say?"

Harry returned his gaze and then let out a breath. "Just get it over with."

Malfoy took Ron's place and cast the next spell. It didn't take long for the pain to reach where it had been and then multiply. Harry tried to keep Ginny's voice in his mind, but holding on was like trying to hold his breath. His body rebelled, and soon he suffocating.

Ginny was running out of things to say. She didn't think Harry could hear her anymore. He'd started moaning and crying out each time Malfoy cast another spell. Each sound made her stomach twist. His entire body began to tremble and convulse to a rhythm that didn't seem to match Malfoy's curses. It was as though he was feeling an entirely different kind of pain.

"What's happening?" Ginny asked. "Harry?"

Draco stopped the curses, but Harry continued to flinch as though struck by lightning. His back arched against the floor. His eyes flew open, staring past Ginny with the most hate-filled gaze she'd ever seen. He opened his mouth, and snarled in the most bitter of bitter voices:

" _Master!"_

Ginny, Draco, Ron, and Hermione froze. Ginny's heart rose her stomach. Something sour pooled at the back of her throat. She was going to throw up.

"What-"

"Did he just say-"

"That's it," Ron said. He snatched Draco by the collar and all but threw him away from Harry. "He's having fucking flashbacks!"

Ginny swallowed down the nausea and cupped her hands on either side of Harry's face. His eyes had closed again. He stopped moaning, but continued to shudder.

"Harry!" she yelled. "You're not Voldemort's soldier anymore! You're free!"

It didn't seem that Harry could hear her, but she continued anyway. Slowly, he went still, and after a moment longer, his eyes fluttered open. He stared up at Ginny, then he moved his head sideways to stare at the shackle still glowing red hot against his wrist.

"None of them worked?" he asked hoarsely.

"We didn't get through all of them," Hermione said without looking at him.

"What? Why not-"

"We stopped," Ron interrupted. "Because you started reliving some of your more intimate memories between you and Voldemort."

Harry paused and sat up a little. He'd remembered the pain. He'd remembered the Cat and Voldemort's taunts, and finally giving in. "I said that out loud?"

"You said it pretty bloody loud, that's for sure," Malfoy muttered.

Harry thumped back against the floorboards and started up at the ceiling. Nothing they tried was going to work. He could feel it.

"Alright, new plan," Ron said. "Instead of torturing Harry, we go and torture Voldemort until he tells us how to remove the shackle."

"I doubt he knows, either," Harry said to the roof. "It was Vagnof who fastened it."

"Vagnof's a Spellcrafter!" Draco said. "The counter-curse probably isn't in any book, anywhere. Why didn't you say this sooner?"

Harry cast him a sour look. "Maybe because I didn't want it to be true." He reached under his collar and pulled the pendant over his head. He tossed the device at Ron, ignoring the lurch that tugged at his gut. "Kindly drive a basilisk fang through that and then me."

Ron caught the horcrux and studied it. "A snake wrapped around the body of a lion. Bastard always loved his metaphors."

Hermione took the pendant from Ron and dropped it on Harry's chest. He sat up and gripped it in his palm.

"I don't think the shackle is coming off, Harry," Hermione said. "We can try the rest of the spells if you want, but…" she trailed off.

Harry sighed. "It's fine," he said. "Maybe I should just focus on trying to get his soul out of me. If I had to choose, I'd rather a shackle around my wrist than a Dark Lord in my head."

If possible, Hermione's expression turned even more doubtful. "The Order have researched Horcruxes extensively over the past few years. We've looked just about everywhere. There's nothing about removing a horcrux without destroying that which it inhabits. If there was, we surely would have come across it by now."

Harry didn't respond. So there it was. He would have to live with a shackle around his wrist and a monster in his brain. The thought was repulsive. To know that Voldemort could enter his mind and whisper to him whenever he liked. It was sure to drive him insane. Harry wondered how long it would take. It would probably depend on how dedicated Voldemort was. Maybe he'd enjoy insanity.

"Why don't you learn Occlumency?" Malfoy asked. At Harry's glance, he continued. "It's a technique used to close off your mind. Maybe instead of getting rid of Voldemort, you can learn to block him out. I'll teach you – if you want."

"No thanks," Harry said. He wasn't about to put himself through the tribulation of having Malfoy of all people try to teach him something. He turned his gaze to Hermione, who had was wearing a dubiously doubtful smile. "What?"

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said, seemingly unable to keep from smirking. "Occlumency is a good idea, but personally, I don't think you'll be very good at it."

Harry furrowed his brow. "Why not?"

"Well, it's just that you're not the type of person," she said. "You wear your emotions on your sleeve. Like right now, you're annoyed at me for laughing at you, but at the same time, you're embarrassed to learn that I can read you like a book."

"Well, I'm glad to know I'm just another copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ to you."

Hermione ignored his jab and got to her feet. "Well, this has been fun," she said in an exaggeratedly chipper voice. "But I still have lots of packing to do."

Her words made Harry remember that she and Ron had plans of their own. They were going to Australia to reunite with Hermione's parents. They would be gone for some time, since Hermione was insisting on travelling via Muggle means. The thought of them being gone for so long made Harry feel uneasy, but he could hardly keep Hermione from her own parents.

The thought made him think inexplicably of the Dursleys. He wondered when they realised that he wasn't coming back. They probably threw a party.

* * *

 **Okay, I was only planning a couple of chapters after the climax, but it sort of just keeps going. This chapter was really painful to write, mainly because I keep second-guessing every line I write. Nevertheless, powering onward!**


	20. Keep On Breathing

**Chapter 19: Keep On Breathing**

Harry twisted in his sleep, tying the sheets in knots. Voldemort's red eyes flashed against the inside of his eyelids.

 _The dementors like me, Harry. I think they'll like you, too._

The rattling of the dementor's breath filled his ears. His blood ran cold in his veins. He shivered in the sweat-soaked sheets. He couldn't breathe.

" _Go, Lily. It's him. Take Harry and run. I'll hold him off…"_

"NO!" Harry bellowed. He clawed at the sheets. He tried to force himself out of the vision, but Voldemort pulled him down, down, down.

 _"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"_

Harry screamed. He screamed for his parents. He screamed against the icy coldness that pervaded every corner of his being.

 _Every night, Harry. Every night I'll show you this memory, accompanied by all the others…_

Visions of pain and torture and torn souls flashed before his mind's eye. Harry thrashed against the nightmare.

 _What would they think if they saw you now, Harry? What would they see? A soldier… a Dark Wizard… a murderer…_

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Harry cried, but Voldemort's voice never ceased.

 _You're the monster, Harry. That's what your parents would think. And your friends will come to realise this, too. You're the monster._

Harry's eyes burst open. Remus stood over him, clutching him by the shoulders with wide, frantic eyes. Remus' lips were moving. Harry gazed up at him without comprehension. All meaning was drowned out by Voldemort's voice.

 _Monster. Monster. Monster._

Harry clutched his hands to his skull, but nothing could stop Voldemort's sadistic chant. He wrenched himself away from Remus.

 _Monster. Monster. Monster._

Harry cried out in frustration, curling his fingers into his hair. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

Every night. Every night since he'd learned the truth about Hermione's voice. Every night Voldemort came for him. Every night Voldemort tormented every restless moment.

 _Monster. Monster. Monster._

Harry wrenched himself off the bed and landed hard on the floor. He ripped the pendant from his neck, balled it up in his hand, and smashed it against the floorboards. Again and again, he pounded the hateful device against the wood to the rhythm of Voldemort's chant. Remus's hands seized him again. Harry recoiled from his touch. He hurled the pendant across the room, flinching at the disconnection. He latched onto the front of Remus' robes.

"MAKE IT STOP!" he yelled over the tumult of Voldemort's chant. "I want it to stop!"

 _Monster. Monster. Monster._

"Please."

Remus crushed him into a tight embrace. Harry shuddered against him.

 _Monster. Monster. Monster._

"Stab me," he choked out. "Stab me with a basilisk fang. Stab the pendant. Make it stop. I want it to end."

Remus responded by holding him all the tighter. Harry could feel Remus's chest rise and fall with his breathing. Harry tried to match his beat for anxious beat.

 _Monster. Monster. Monster._

"You know, Harry," Remus said softly. Harry tried to focus on his words. "I met your father on the Hogwarts Express on our first day of Hogwarts. He and Sirius were playing a game of Exploding Snap, and I asked to join their compartment. It took a while for them to warm up to me. I think they could tell I was hiding something from the very beginning…"

Harry held onto Remus's words and let them drown out Voldemort's chants. Slowly, Voldemort's voice grew faint as Harry drew himself out of the nightmare. They stayed that way all night, until the shadows around the room began to lift.

"Come on, Harry," Remus said finally. "I want to show you something."

Remus helped Harry to his feet. His legs didn't want to work properly after spending all night in the same position. Remus apparated them into a cemetery. It was dark and quiet in the early hours of the morning. A thin fog hung over everything, and scattered the sunlight peeking over the trees, so that there weren't any definable shadows.

Harry followed Remus as he picked his way through the crop of gravestones. He stopped and gazed down at one in particular. Harry followed his gaze and read the names of his parents. Next to them, a second gravestone had Sirius' name emblazoned across it. Harry quickly looked away.

"James was ridiculously excited when he brought you home for the first time," Remus said. "He had all these crazy plans about Quidditch and sneaking you out of Hogwarts and all that. Meanwhile, Lily would endlessly insist that you were the most beautiful little boy who ever lived. They would have been so proud of you, Harry."

Harry laughed, long and stale, digging his hands into his pockets. "Proud of their Dark Wizard son."

"You've had to fight to be where you are today," Remus said firmly. "James wanted to be an Auror. He can respect the life you've lived. Lily saw the beauty in everyone she met. She would have seen more than enough of it in you."

Harry tried to swallow down the lump forming in the back of his throat. He breathed out, and watched his misty breath fade into the frigid air.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked.

"I thought it was about time you felt close to your parents."

"They're dead," Harry said, staring past his parents' graves into the horizon. "The only way I'll be close to them is if I'm dead, too."

Remus laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Read the gravestone, Harry."

Harry glanced at the slate of stone. He saw their names, and the date they died, but underneath was more writing.

 _The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death._

Harry blanched. "Who would write something like that on-"

"It doesn't mean what you think it means," Remus said. "It's not talking about living forever like Voldemort. It's saying that death doesn't have to be the end. It's a nod to a life beyond death, where we can be reunited to those we've lost."

Harry suddenly felt as if those words had been carved from the very depths of his soul.

"It's a reassurance, Harry," Remus said, gripping his shoulder tighter. "To keep on breathing."

Harry's vision blurred. He closed his eyes to keep the tears from falling. "But I'm so tired."

"I know, Harry," Remus said softly. "You've lived an ugly life, but I promise, it will get easier. Just keep holding on. Keep pushing forward. You're not alone anymore. I'll be with you, and I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here every step of the way, and I promise, your life will become beautiful."

Harry kept his eyes closed. He suddenly realised he was shivering. He tried to stand still, but that just made his breath begin to hitch. Sirius had once said something very similar, and look where that had gotten him? Dumbledore had said that, too.

It had been so long since he'd had a family.

"You won't leave?" Harry said in a small voice. He hated how childish those words sounded.

He opened his eyes and met Remus's gaze. His brown eyes reminded Harry of autumn leaves. He had deep circles around his eyes, and a permanent crease in his brow, but his eyes were soft and kind.

"I won't leave."

His words hung in the early morning air. Harry heard them. He moved to embrace Harry again, and Harry let him. He felt the rise and fall of Remus's chest. He breathed in his warm scent, and found that he could let go of something that had been clinging to him for far too long. The silence of the early morning cemetery enveloped him. He kept on breathing.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

It was late morning by the time Remus and Harry arrived back at Grimmauld Place, and Harry found that he was actually hungry for a change. Remus disappeared upstairs to prepare for his job in the Ministry. Harry went into the kitchen, but found that Draco was already there, hunched over a book and a plate full of eggs and bacon.

Harry paused and considered coming back later, but then decided that he wasn't going to let Draco Malfoy's mere presence dictate his actions. He pointedly ignored the Malfoy heir as he stepped past him and opened the pantry door. The pantry had an abundance of just about every foodstuff imaginable, and Harry realised that he had no idea what he actually wanted to eat. He surveyed the rows of jam, cereals, and pastries, and finally settled on a container of oatmeal. As he poured it into a bowl, Draco let out a dry, airy laugh.

"Let me get this straight," Draco said. "For the past three years, you've had to subsist on the same shit they use to line the pavements on an icy morning, and when you finally do get to choose what you eat, you choose _oatmeal_?"

There was something about Draco's tone and manner that made Harry smile in spite of everything. He shrugged. "Everything else has too much flavour," he said. He glanced at Draco's plate. "Like bacon. These days, I can't stand the stuff."

Draco raised an eyebrow. He picked up the three strips of bacon he had, and while maintaining steady eye contact, shoved them into his mouth. Harry gave him a disgusted look and turned back to his oatmeal.

"Since we're on such good terms," Draco said once he'd finished chewing. "Couldn't you cast a Muffliato or something on your door at night? I can barely sleep with all your carrying on."

Harry knew that he was just having a joke, but the smile still died on his lips. "Sorry I interrupted your beauty sleep."

Draco hesitated as he surveyed Harry from across the bench. "The offer's still on the table," he said, and Harry could tell he was sincere.

"Okay," Harry replied. Draco tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, so Harry said, "Draco Malfoy, will you teach me how to keep this miserable motherfucker out of my head?"

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

"Occlumency is all about control," Draco said, sounding every bit like a Hogwarts teacher giving a lecture. "When Voldemort sends you those visions, he is in control. We need to change that." Draco pointed his wand at him. Harry stiffened. "I'm going to attempt to get into your mind, and you're going to attempt to stop me."

"Excuse me?" Harry said incredulously.

"I'm going to try to read your mind-"

"Absolutely not," Harry said. "No way in all that is magical am I letting _you_ poke around inside my head."

"How else do you expect to learn to keep people out?" Draco said.

Harry didn't reply. He didn't know the answer to that question, but there was one thing he knew for certain. The idea of Draco sifting through his memories like a book made his skin crawl.

"Let's just start with the hypothetical and go from there," Harry said.

Draco huffed and muttered, "You're no fun." He pocketed his wand. "The first step of Occlumencey is to clear your mind. The more crowded your mind is, the easier it is to get into it. The second step is to build a mental barrier inside your mind. Everyone's barrier is different. For example, mine is a brick wall. Every time I need to use Occlumencey, I imagine laying down each brick to create a solid wall that no one can pass through."

"That's it?" Harry said. "You just _build a wall_?"

Draco scowled at him. "It takes willpower. If you tried to just imagine a brick wall, Voldemort would pass through it as though it was made of cotton candy. It takes practice, the real problem you'll have is your emotions."

"What about my emotions?"

"Granger's right," Draco said. "You feel everything too much. Maybe if you didn't get so worked up, you would've survived in the camp. You wouldn't have killed that soldier-"

"Stop talking," Harry snapped.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Draco said. "You _feel_ everything. You've got to learn to suppress shit like the rest of us."

"I suppose it's easy for a Slytherin like you."

Draco shrugged.

Harry found Draco's supposed pep-talk less than inspiring, but nevertheless resolved to try it that night. As the darkness set in once again, and Voldemort's voice began to ring in his ears, he tried to clear his mind, and build a barrier.

It did not work. For starters, he found the phrase "clear your mind" to be quite paradoxical. The more he tried to think about nothing, the more he thought about not thinking about nothing. This proceeded to frustrate him, and suddenly Voldemort was in his brain, and the dementor's breath was rattling through his bones.

Draco didn't need to ask how he had gone the following morning. He would have heard enough of the night previous to know the answer.

"You just have to clear your mind!" he insisted.

"Oh, crap, I forgot that bit," Harry snarked. "I was going to, but then I thought – hey! Why should I do that, when I can relive my worst memories instead?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Stop being such a martyr," he replied. "'Clear your mind' doesn't have to mean literally thinking about nothing. That's just about impossible. Just try to hold one clear thought in you mind and let it block out everything else. Then you build your wall."

Harry tried again that night. And the next. And the one after that.

"Merlin, Potter," Draco said one morning as Harry nearly nodded off into a bowl-full of oatmeal. "It's a miracle the Death Eaters managed to teach you anything."

Harry hadn't had the energy to reply. He went back upstairs for a nap. The minute he began to doze, Voldemort was there, hovering just beyond consciousness. He tried to clear his mind by focusing on one thought and nothing else: his round glasses. He always kept them close by, even if he didn't wear them. They were a reminder. A symbol. Of the kind of person he was working to be. He imagined the thin curve of the wire. The weight of them on his nose.

He imagined building a wall, brick by brick, in his mind, but Voldemort's voice still ghosted through his head.

 _Monster, Monster, Monster._

Harry flinched and lurched back into startling wakefulness. He scrubbed his face and sighed, staring up at that familiar ceiling. It looked different in the daylight.

He decided to go to the Burrow, and found Ginny, Fred, and George having a game in the backyard. Ginny and Harry had grown a little closer since Ron and Hermione had left for Australia. They usually talked quietly at the end of the table during the evening feasts. They talked a lot about nothing in particular, and Harry liked it. He liked talking about things that didn't matter.

The three Weasleys invited him to join the game, but he declined. He had no energy. Instead, Ginny landed on the ground, and they sat together in the grass. Harry told her about his latest failed attempt to keep Voldemort out of his head.

"Nothing I do seems to help at all," Harry said. "I must have built a thousand walls by now. He acts like they don't even exist. Nothing I do seems to keep him out."

"Well, it sort of makes sense," Ginny said. "How do you keep out something that's already inside?"

Harry paused. He honestly hadn't thought of that. All this time, he'd been trying to block Voldemort out. But his horcrux was already inside him. Maybe the wall analogy was all wrong. Maybe he needed to try something different.

That night, Harry cleared his mind. He searched inside himself for the part that was Voldemort. That small, broken shard that tainted his soul. He felt it, and he buried it. The real Voldemort was trapped in a cell in Azkaban, so it was only fitting that his soul should be trapped in a cell in Harry's mind. He buried Voldemort in the darkest recesses of his brain. For a moment, it worked. He could put up a fight against Voldemort's pervasions. It didn't last long. The Dark Lord realised what he was doing, and pushed back.

Harry endured another night, and found that he could bare it a little more, because he knew that he had a way. That there was a way.


	21. Still Human

**Chapter 20: Still Human**

* * *

Harry picked at his kidney pie and stole glances across the table at Ginny. Every now and then, she'd glance at him in the exact same moment, and they'd share a sly smile before glancing away again.

Time had begun to pass a little quicker since he'd learnt to block out Voldemort. Before he realised it, a month had gone by. An entire month of doing what he wanted, _when_ he wanted. The concept still felt so foreign. He kept waiting for someone to come along and tell him what to do and who to be, but no one came. He could do what _he_ wanted.

And what he wanted turned out to be spending every moment he could with Ginny. She laughed so much. When Harry heard it, it made him feel as though the sun had just risen after a particularly dark night. They had grown very close after a month. Harry had even described on one sombre evening what it had felt like to have his soul torn it two.

They'd grown closer in other - more physical - ways, too.

Ginny was training to become a professional Quidditch player. She wasn't yet old enough to apply for a team, so she spent her days practicing in the field behind the Burrow. Harry spent his days flying with her. He'd forgotten how much he'd loved flying.

Ginny's aspirations made Harry realise that he had no real plans for the future. He'd never needed any. Back at Hogwarts, his favourite subject had always been Defence Against the Dark Arts. The most logical next step was to become an Auror, but to Harry that felt like being a soldier under a different title.

A disturbing majority of the public still detested the Dark Soldiers' very existence, despite numerous campaigns by the Ministry of Magic to change public perceptions. This included interviews in the Daily Prophet with ex-Dark Soldiers. Harry had been approached numerous times for such interviews, to all of which he'd adamantly refused. The Wizarding World already hated him – there was no need to add kerosene to the flames.

Harry, for one, found the whole debate over whether the Dark Soldiers should be free of not to be completely arbitrary. If the Wizarding World decided they wanted to lock them all up, they'd have a hell of a time trying to catch them. They'd been trained well. The Dark Soldiers wouldn't come willingly back to captivity.

Despite the increasingly heated debates over the fate of the Dark Soldiers, the world as a whole seemed to be restoring to a natural order. They were collectively picking up the pieces and moving on as best they could. Harry glanced up the long table. The now ex-Order members were laughing and conversing freely. The banter came easily, and there was an air of festivity to their gathering. Harry knew this should be the happiest time of his life. All that tied him to his previous life now was his shackle and his memories. There were no runes, he had both halves of his soul, and Voldemort's voice was buried as deep as it could get.

And yet he still felt on edge. Off-kilter, as though the world was always slightly ajar, and nothing he did could right it again. Even after spending the entire day playing Quidditch and being with Ginny, he could never feel truly at ease with himself.

The constant flashbacks didn't help. Every now and then, a dog would bark, or a man with long black hair would catch his eye, and he'd be inexplicably reminded of Sirius. Suddenly, it was like he'd lost his Godfather all over again in that very instant. The guilt would surge in his gut. His heart would pound in his ears, and he'd forget how to breathe.

And it didn't stop there. Ginny and he had been playing Quidditch with the twins, who had goaded Ginny about being able to pull off a particularly difficult manoeuvre, to which she'd replied, "Watch me!", and suddenly Harry was back in the Dungeons, with Voldemort standing over the Muggle and his soul about to be torn in two.

Even the term 'idiot' said in passing was enough to make him flinch.

He wondered if the other soldiers' experienced things like this. Maybe it was just him and his cracked brain. That was the thing about pain, after all. You could endure a thousand Crucios and still gasp at a Stinging Hex. Pain didn't weaken over time or the more you felt it. Pain was constant. All that changed was your ability to cope.

Harry glanced at Ginny and caught her eye. She waggled her eyebrows and gave him a smile. He loved that devilish smirk. She set down her knife and fork.

"Come on," she said. She took Harry's hand, and he let her lead him away from the feast, around behind the Burrow where they could be alone. She turned around and kissed with such fervour that his back was pressed hard up against the wall. He didn't mind. She tasted like Yorkshire Pudding. He wondered absurdly if he tasted like kidney pie.

Her hands strayed up around the base of his neck. He stiffened. Her touch – a moment ago warm and tantalising – suddenly turned cold. He was choking. Voldemort's bony fingers were clamped around his neck. Harry jerked away. Disgust burned in the back of his throat. He gasped for a breath that wouldn't come. Redness clouded his vision.

"Harry?"

Ginny's voice sounded a million miles away. Suddenly he was dry-heaving on the ground, desperately trying to swallow down that feeling of complete and utter domination – all while giving Ginny entirely the wrong impression.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Draco Malfoy hated being a Pureblood. Everywhere he went, people stared, and judged. Even though he'd helped the Order take down Voldemort. Even though he'd very publicly attacked his father. Even though his case had been overturned. He suspected there was nothing he could do to change public perceptions of him, but he'd be damned if he didn't at least try.

So when Potter came home that night, he found Draco waiting for him.

"Alright, Golden Boy," Draco said. "I did you a favour by teaching you Occlumency, now you return the favour by going on a date with me."

Potter blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Everyone hates me. Maybe if they see you and I meeting publicly on good terms, they'll rethink their opinion of me."

Harry narrowed his eyes at him incredulously. "Because you think the public's perception of me is any better?"

"Of course it is," Draco said. "You're the Boy-Who-Lived. The Chosen One. The Golden Boy."

Harry laughed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Gee - I'd love to break things off with Ginny and go out with you, Malfoy, but the unfortunate truth is, the rest of the world probably hates us both equally."

Draco huffed. "I don't believe you. The world's been putting you on a pedestal since you were a year old."

Harry stared at him for moment and then strolled out of the room. He returned a moment later holding a copy of the Daily Prophet. He unfurled it, revealing a full-page photo of Harry kneeling in front of Voldemort at the Celebration Ball, with the words **BOY-WHO-BETRAYED** underneath.

"Those days are long gone," Harry said simply.

Draco stared at the image of Harry, then turned his gaze to the real Harry. "Then what are we supposed to do? I can't stand being a social pariah."

Harry shrugged. "I'd invest in a good disguise."

Draco huffed and rolled his eyes. "I'm being serious."

"So am I," Harry said, raising his eyebrows. "I've been disguising myself as Fred Weasley for weeks now. Sometimes I'll just walk aimlessly among the crowds in Diagon Alley in complete anonymity – it's great."

The fireplace flared up suddenly and Remus stepped out of the green flames with wide eyes. He caught sight of Draco and Harry and straightened.

"Harry – oh good, you're here," he said in a pathetic attempt at nonchalance. "Let's just… stay here for a bit, shall we? Who wants tea?"

"I'm here, too," Draco said haughtily.

"What's going on, Remus?" Harry said.

Remus eyed Harry and pressed his lips together. Finally, he said, "There's a march in Diagon Alley."

"So what?" Draco said. "There's a march at least once a week."

"This one's different," Remus said, still eyeing Harry. "This one's led by a man who's calling for your death."

Harry immediately moved to the fireplace. Remus stopped him, standing resolutely in front of the flames.

"You can't stop me from going," Harry said.

"Not two weeks ago you were asking me to drive a basilisk fang through your heart."

Harry reached beneath his collar and tore the pendant from his neck. He set it on the mantle above the fireplace. "There," Harry said. "I'm immortal." Remus eyed the pendant, then eyed Harry, and cautiously stepped aside.

Harry wasted no time in making his way to Diagon Alley. There was a large mass of gatherers down the centre of the street while shouting various chants. Flanking the perimeter were Aurors. Remus and Draco appeared beside him.

Harry elbowed Draco as he watched the procession. "What was that you said about me being put on a pedestal?"

If Draco responded, Harry didn't hear it. He'd just caught sight of the man leading the demonstration. He held up a large sign, and when Harry saw what it said, everything inside him crumpled to pieces.

 **HARRY POTTER KILLED MY SON.**

Harry was running before Remus could stop him. He ran until he stood directly in front of the man and stared him in the eye. He now regretted leaving his horcrux on the mantle. He deserved to die. And this man deserved to be the one who did it.

The man threw down the sign and pointed at Harry. "You!" the man shouted. "You're the monster who killed my Nigel!"

 _Nigel._

Harry hadn't known the name of the boy when he'd stepped into the Cage, and he hadn't wanted to know after. Harry couldn't speak. He didn't know what to say. What could he _possibly_ say? _I'm sorry I became so lost in my own madness that I thought your son was the Dark lord._

Harry thought of the boy, lying there in the dirt. He'd looked so _small._ He thought of all the time he'd spent with Ginny these past weeks. All the while, this man had been grieving his son. Harry couldn't believe he'd actually allowed himself to be happy. The thought made him sick.

"I'm sorry-" Harry said, in a voice barely above a whisper, but the man heard, and objected.

"You don't _get-_ " he broke off, his expression contorting. "You killed – you _smashed_ – his _face_ , with your own two – YOU MURDERED MY BOY! YOU ANIMAL!"

A woman to the man's left placed a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off and seemed to gain some semblance of composure. He glared at Harry with fury in his eyes.

"You don't get to be sorry! You get to live out your life of freedom while I will never get to see my son again. How do you live with yourself? How can you just _stand there_?"

"I never meant-"

"NO!" the man yelled over him. "Do not make excuses at me! Don't you dare! You are a murderer, and nothing you say will change that!"

There is was. The someone who was telling him what to do and who to be. Harry did the only thing he could think of doing. He'd sworn that he would never do it again, but maybe this was different. This was for a reason. Harry fell to his knees in front of the man whose son he had murdered.

"I've knelt in front of only one other man, and it was _never_ voluntary," Harry said, gazing up at the man and forcing his voice to ring loud. "I was in your place, once. I once met the man who was responsible for leading Voldemort directly to my parents, which means I know that there is nothing I can ever do that will be enough." Harry crossed his wrists over each other as though they were shackled. "So do what you will."

The man gazed at him for one furious moment, then withdrew his wand and yelled "Crucio!" The spell hurtled into Harry's chest, but only a brief spark flitted through him. The protesters behind the man shouted in alarm and moved to restrain him. Harry saw Remus and Draco running to him out of the corner of his eye. Harry never lost the man's gaze.

"You have to mean it!" Harry shouted at him.

Remus seized him and forced him to his feet. "What is wrong with you?" he hissed at him.

"I killed his son," Harry returned. "He's entitled."

Remus simply glared at him and turned to the protesters.

"Harry Potter is the reason Voldemort is gone," Remus said. "He and the other soldiers are not to be held accountable for their actions as Dark Soldiers!"

A young man stepped forward from amongst the crowd. "I would have died rather than to betray my family!" he yelled. "You say the Dark Soldiers had no choice? There's always a choice!"

"Yeah, they had a choice," Draco said. "'Do what you're told, or we'll torture you. Do what you're told, or we'll kill you. Do what you're told, or we'll kill your family.' What would you choose then?"

"Now is not the time," Remus said before the man could respond. "This debate is to be settled through the Ministry, not through the Unforgiveables!"

Remus gripped Harry by the wrist, and before he could apparate them both away, Harry turned to the man and said, "I may not be able to make amends – but I'll spend the rest of my life trying."

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

When Hermione arrived back in Britain after a month and a half, she found that she was terribly relieved to be back home. Australia was a beautiful country, and she could see why it had always been a dream of her parents to move there, but she constantly found her thoughts drifting to home.

She'd found her parents in Sydney, having set up their own sweet shop. She'd expected them to be cross with her when she'd righted their memories, but they'd only been relieved and happy to remember their daughter. What had taken much more effort was convincing them to come back. They'd grown comfortable with the lives in Sydney. In the end, Hermione had only been able to convince them by reminding them of the numerous extended family members they'd inadvertently left behind in Britain.

Before they left, Ron and Hermione decided to visit the Wizarding World of Australia. They had a similar Minister of Magic, and Ron seemed to find it terribly amusing that the most pressing matter the Australian Ministry of Magic had to deal with was the worryingly increasing number of incidences of wizarding delinquents spelling magpies to attack unsuspecting Muggles.

Ron also quite enjoyed learning that the Ministry's fourth Minister, Harold Holt, had been elected for the role of Prime Minister of Australia as well as Minister for the Ministry of Magic in the same year. Holt had found this to be far too stressful, so faked his own death in the Muggle world the following year. He subsequently visited the swimming pool named after him every Sunday.

What fascinated Hermione most, however, was Australia's wizarding school, Thundelarra. The school had no houses and had very little structure in general. Each morning, classes offered for that day would be posted on billboards stationed around the grounds, and the students were free to choose which class they attended based on recommendations for their skill level. This created a strong sense of community and mateship, where the students were actively encouraged to teach and learn from each other.

What interested Hermione even further was that there was no Pureblood or Muggleborn agenda in Australia. All the students were expected to be familiar with both Muggle and Magical worlds, and thus, Thundelarra offered classes on spells, potions, and charms, while simultaneously offering classes on algebra, art, and science.

Ron and Hermione arrived home with her parents in tow in the late afternoon, just in time for the nightly feast at the Burrow. The first thing she noticed was how different Harry was. He looked far healthier than he'd been when they left, and his smile upon their arrival seemed genuine. The second thing she noticed was how close Ginny and Harry had become. They sat about as close to each other as they could get.

"So, what have I missed?" Hermione said, glancing between the two once they'd been through the reunion and sat down. Her parents sat further up the table, having been enthusiastically approached by an overzealous Arthur.

"Not much," Ginny said. "Marches in Diagon Alley. Threats on Harry's life. The usual."

"Still keeping up the old antics, eh, Scarface?" Ron said, slapping a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"In more ways then one," Harry said monotonously.

Hermione smiled. "So you two are a couple?"

"Wait, what?" Ron said. "You two are – No, absolutely not."

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "You think you can dictate who I go out with?"

"I – no – but – Harry!"

Harry shrugged and grinned at Ron. "You said to live one day at a time. That's exactly what I've been doing."

Ron scowled at him. "I swear to Merlin, mate. If you do anything, you can add another tally to the number of threats on your life."

Harry slung an arm over Ginny's shoulder and said, "Seems fair."

Ron's scowl grew darker. "I liked you better when you were an angsty teenager."

"I bet you did," Ginny said. "Because now the only one being immature is you." Ginny turned pointedly to Hermione, just because she knew that ignoring Ron would infuriate him most. "How was Australia?"

"It was extraordinary," Hermione said. "There is such a sense of community there. We visited their magical school, Thundelarra. It made me realise that we still don't have a school. We've got an entire generation of magical children whose education is being neglected. I was thinking of started up a Ministry Education Board to discuss…" She trailed off when Harry and Ginny shared a knowing look. "What?"

"Come on," Harry said. Ginny and Harry took Ron and Hermione's wrists, and they apparated from the feast. They landed on the grassy banks above the Great Lake. They turned, and there were the ruins of Hogwarts. Except much of the rubble had been cleared away. All that was left were the inner structures of the lower floor, and already the skeletal frame of new structures and buildings had been set up.

"I'm to rebuild it, Hermione," Harry said.

* * *

 **Just as a side note, I made up Thundelarra because I'm Australian and still salty Rowling didn't give us a magical school of our own. Us Aussies always draw the short straw. One day, I'm gonna invent my own magical narnian lord-of-the-rings type kingdom and the only people who'll be able to get to it are us Aussies! That'll teach ya.**


	22. Epilogue: The Rise of Hogwarts

**Epilogue: The Rise of Hogwarts**

* * *

Harry Potter couldn't sleep. But that wasn't unusual. Finally, he swung himself from the bed and slipped on the round wire frames. They did nothing to his vision, but the cold wire brought him out of the dream. He couldn't remember its contents, just the feeling of anxiety it had left him with. He suspected Voldemort had something to do with it. His Occlumencey kept the Dark Lord out most of the time, but sometimes in the depth of deep sleep, the monster clawed his way to the surface of Harry's mind.

Harry stepped into the dark corridor. It was a few hours after midnight, and the school was dead quiet. Harry let his shoulder brush against the stones as he walked, letting his feet carry him through the corridors of Hogwarts as they always did.

Hogwarts: School of All Crafts had officially reopened three years ago. Everyone had expected Harry to take a teaching position, but he'd decided to be the Grounds Keeper instead. He liked working to his own rhythm and there was always something to work on. He'd poured his soul into this school to make it was it was, and he wasn't about to stop.

He loved this school more than anything he had before. It was his haven. His home. He spent more time here than anywhere else. Spent more time with the students than with his own friends. This was largely due to the fact that everyone had realised that he wasn't aging. He was nearly twenty-two, yet he didn't look a day older than seventeen. His horcrux kept him literally immortal.

He'd broken things off with Ginny when he'd realised. She'd cracked jokes about her perpetually teenaged boyfriend, and Harry had decided that it wasn't fair to her. She was dating someone else, now. Someone named Loony or Lupo or something like that. Harry wasn't really keeping track.

He spent less time with his old friends, too. They were growing up, and even though he was, too, he'd begun to notice that they treated him as though he was still seventeen. Ruffling his hair. Calling him names. The media had caught on, too. He wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived anymore. He was the Boy-Who-Lives.

But at Hogwarts, it was different. The younger students may be terrified of him at first, but by the time they got to fourth year and onwards, they came to realise that Harry was their ally. He constantly reminded them that he wasn't a teacher, and Harry found that he liked the company of people who didn't remember much about the war.

Harry's feet took him up to the Astronomy Tower as they always did, but when he got there, he found that he wasn't alone. A student was leaning against an open window, gazing out at the Hogwarts grounds. At Harry's entrance, a student jumped and whipped around with a sharp breath. He did not relax when he realised it was Harry who stood in the entrance.

"It's a bit late to be stargazing, wouldn't you say?" Harry said.

"I'm sorry, Sir," the boy said immediately. Harry hated the way the student was looking at him. Cautious. Gauging. He was short and skinny, probably in second or third year. He wore no house colours. The four houses had been abolished. Students were sorted by year level, and that was all. The Four Founders instead had become pillars for the students to admire and aspire to be. The ideal student was not the embodiment of one founder, but of all four at once.

Harry frowned. "There's no need to be sorry."

"Are you going to give me detention?" he asked.

"For being out after hours?" Harry said. "That would be a little hypocritical, wouldn't you say?" The boy shrugged and stood in awkward silence. After a brief pause, Harry asked, "What's your name?"

"Jasper."

"Can I ask why you're out so late, Jasper?"

Jasper swallowed. "I couldn't sleep."

"I know the feeling," Harry said. He stepped up beside him and gazed out the window to the Hogwarts grounds. The boy lingered there, seemingly unsure whether to leave or stay. "Are you afraid of me?" Harry asked.

Jasper blinked. "No – I, well," he paused. "People say you're evil."

This was not news to Harry. "Do you think I'm evil?"

"I don't know," he said. He seemed to notice Harry's disappointment and rushed to finish. "I mean – you rebuilt Hogwarts, so how evil can you be?"

Harry smiled to himself. "How much do you remember of the war, Jasper?"

"Not much," he said. "I was nine when you defeated Voldemort, and before that, my parents always rushed me out of the room whenever anyone mentioned to war."

"Did you know that before the war, students at Hogwarts were sorted into four houses based on their personalities?" The boy nodded his head. "It become common opinion that Gryffindor was good and Slytherin was bad. Your status as good or evil became predetermined by the colours of our school robes. That was the Wizarding World's first mistake. They didn't realise that everyone has both good and bad inside them, and that it's up to every individual to choose which side they act upon."

"Is that why we don't have houses anymore?" Jasper asked. "So that everyone gets to choose for themselves?"

"That was part of it. It was also mainly because we were sick and tired of the Wizarding World being segregated. There's always been this 'us and them' mentality. Gryffindor vs Slytherin. Pureblood vs Muggle-born. Wizards vs Muggles. We need to start working together or we'll just tear each other apart.

"Is that why you put in the Muggle classes, too?" Jasper asked.

Harry smiled. Another new addition Hermione had been especially insistent about was the inclusion of Muggle classes, such as science, maths, and art, in the Hogwarts's curriculum. She argued that the Muggle Studies class wasn't enough to bridge the gap between Wizards and Muggles, and taking Muggle classes would help form relationships between young Purebloods and Muggleborns.

"Yes, it is," Harry said.

They descended into silence again.

"Can I ask you something?" Jasper said. Harry turned to face him, and he continued. "We were learning about the Dark Wizards in History today, and Professor Hecklebee was talking about how you killed the Minister of Magic, and I was wondering – well, could I ask – What's it like to kill someone?"

Jasper's eyes darted everywhere except Harry, but Harry couldn't look away from him. What kind of kid asked questions like that? How was he supposed to respond? Did he refuse to answer? Give some cryptic response? Be honest?

Harry finally turned back to the window. He thought of Fudge's ragdoll form. Of Nigel lying in the dust. Maybe he could just be honest.

"It's like becoming everything that is wrong with the world all at once," Harry said quietly. Jasper was silent beside him. "Your life is the only thing you get to experience. It's the most important thing you have, and to be the person who takes that away from someone else…"

Harry didn't finish. The boy and he stood that way for a long stretch of time in silence once again, each in their own thoughts. Harry wondered if maybe Jasper was a bit too young to be talking about this kind of stuff. He did seem very small.

Finally, Jasper turned to him. "I don't think you're evil, Sir," he said.

Harry gave him a small smile. The outcry to imprison the Dark Soldiers had died down slowly over the last couple of years, but it was still there. The judgement. The suspicion. The fear. There was a reason Harry liked Hogwarts so much. He was constantly surrounded by people who remembered very little of the war. But they could also be painfully naive.

"Go to bed, Jasper," Harry said. Jasper frowned at him for a moment, and then disappeared back down the stairs. Harry remained at that window until the darkness began to lift.

He pushed down his sleeve and gazed at that thick black shackle. It glistened as new as the day he'd received it. Until the Final Price. Those words didn't fill him with the revulsion they used to. He'd given them a new meaning. His horcrux hung around his neck. He was as close to mortal as he'd ever be. The words were an assurance. That there was always an end in sight. One day he would find someone to do the honours, and he would pass into the next world.

His gaze drifted down to the names that had been tattooed into his forearm. James, Lily, Cedric, Daniel, Cornelius, Jesse, Nigel, Sirius. All the people that were dead because of him. He'd had to search hard to find the name Daniel. He'd been the Muggle Voldemort had forced Harry to kill all those years ago. Jesse, meanwhile, was the man who'd given his life for Harry's horcrux. Harry would find a way to repay his debt to these people before he passed into the next world.

How did you repay a human life? It was an impossible debt, but one Harry was determined to pay. He was certain that ne never would, but that wasn't going to stop him from trying. He owed that much to the names on his forearm.

Down by the Forbidden Forest, Harry had planted a Garden of Ghosts, named the Nigel Memorial Garden. It was a very small gesture, but at least it was a start.

Harry spent all morning gazing at the school he'd built as the new day gradually illuminated the world. He muttered under his breath the mantra that had gotten him though Gaunt Camp.

One day at a time.

* * *

 **And that's all she wrote! I'm finished! Sorry I took so long to update this last chapter. I quite frankly had no idea how to write this scene. Thanks a bunch for reading. This is probably my last chance for reviews before this fic is lost to the bottomless pit that is Harry Potter fanfiction, so please review! I'd really like to know what you thought.**

 **You may of may not have noticed that some of the chapters are actually references to songs, and I just thought I'd mention them since they're some of my favourites. Know Your Enemy - Green Day, Straight Lines - Silverchair, Soldier On - The Temper Trap, Wicked Game - Chris Isaac, Familiar Faces - lyrics from Mad World, The Thin Ice - Pink Floyd, Not Too Late to Feel A Little More Alive - lyrics from Vaporise by Broken Bells.**

 **Surprisingly, I actually already have an idea for another fic, involving the Harry from this universe. I've been getting really into those fics where the Order summon a Harry from an alternate universe to do their dirty work for them, and it's gotten me thinking. Imagine if the Harry from this universe was summoned into another and forced to defeat Voldy all over again? Could be promising, so stay tuned!**

 **UPDATE:**

 **Okay, so I've realised that there are still some points that might seem like they have gone unanswered, so let me explain. Voldemort's soul is staying inside Harry for good. The only way to destroy it is if Harry dies, and the only way for Harry to die is for his horcrux to be destroyed, also. Harry has no way of knowing that he would be given the choice to come back to life or stay dead. This means that if I wanted to make this happen, I'd have to make Harry actually want to die, which I really don't feel like doing. His occlumencey is just going to have to be enough.**

 **There's also this one thing that I've never understood about horcruxes. You've become essentially immortal, and yet you continue to age? Then a horcrux would be pointless, because your body would still waste away. The only solution I can see to this is that tearing your soul in two also steps the effects of ageing. I'm pretty sure this isn't canon, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who would disagree, but that's just my two cents on the matter.**

 **I hope that's cleared things up a little bit. I'm sorry if the ending was a little abrupt. I know this story's far from perfect (sorry about all the typos!) but hey, at least I've put something out there. I was so nervous when I posted that first chapter! Thanks again for reading.**

 **x**


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